Politicians exploited children to secure fraud in Colombia’s local elections
Source: Colombia Reports
Politicians exploited children to secure fraud in Colombia’s local elections
Posted by Grace Brown on Oct 30, 2015
Candidates in northeast Colombia have gone to extreme levels to gain votes by exploiting impoverished children, local media reported Thursday.
According to a report published by Cucuta 7 Dias newspaper on Thursday, dirty politics reached a new low in and around the city of Cucuta on election day as children from poor neighborhoods were paid by candidates to escort voters to the polls, making sure they voted “correctly.”
This is a new addition to the list of tactics taken by politicians to rig the elections in their favor by buying votes.
“One of my students told how the leader on the area had arranged a daily payment of $34 with his mum. They could choose cash or the equivalent amount in goods. The child had been trained with other children in the area for two months, and they hadn’t said anything in class because they were told that if they said anything, they wouldn’t get the money,” a teacher from the village of Juan Atalaya told Cucuta 7 Dias, adding that “they were trained to work all of election day, marking ballot papers for the elderly, and accompanying adults to vote, making sure they voted for the same candidate.”
Read more: http://colombiareports.com/politicians-exploited-children-to-secure-fraud-in-colombias-local-elections/