Colombia’s “peace seats” in Congress – created to give victims of the decades-long conflict a voice – are facing increased scrutiny as elections approach. Concerns are mounting that traditional political clans and armed groups are attempting to co-opt candidates and influence the outcome of the March 8, 2026, vote.
The 16 seats, formally known as the Special Transitional Circumscriptions of Peace (CITREP), were established by a 2021 peace accord to represent the more than 10 million Colombians officially registered as victims of armed conflict. Yet, the upcoming election is taking place amid a resurgence of violence and a deepening humanitarian crisis, raising fears that the process will be compromised. According to the Electoral Observation Mission (MOE), 31% of political violence in the country in 2025 occurred in municipalities where these special seats are being contested.
“It’s the pressure, on the one hand, from political groups, the political ‘houses’ that are pressing to co-opt the spaces of the peace seats (…) and, pressure from armed groups on different organizations in order to have an influence on the construction of candidates or their lists that are presented in the CIPRET municipalities,” explained Diego Alejandro Pedraza, a democracy researcher at the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation.
Pedraza, with the Pares Foundation’s observatory, is focused on identifying potential electoral irregularities and scrutinizing candidates with questionable backgrounds. “So, the political ‘houses’ or the armed group are having an influence on the construction of the candidate, they put the candidates on the lists.”
Concerns are particularly acute in the Catatumbo region, where a fierce battle has been raging for over a year between the 33rd Front of the dissident group led by alias Calarcá and the National Liberation Army (ELN) commanded by aliases Pablito and Silvana Guerrero.
A resident of San Calixto, one of eight Catatumbo municipalities affected by the armed conflict, agreed to speak under the condition of anonymity, citing safety concerns. “The atmosphere in Catatumbo is one of apprehension, of fear (…) Here in the rural areas, for example, we don’t have community action committees, committee presidents because of the humanitarian situation. Many of them left under threat, and this is a situation that is happening throughout Catatumbo in each of the municipalities. Both the ELN and the dissidents have taken these spaces and are coercing them in order to somehow guide actions in the territory,” the resident said.
Pedraza explained the appeal of these seats to outside interests: “Very simple. Because in a peace seat you don’t need 40,000 or 50,000, or 60,000 votes in the territory, you need a margin that can range between two, three or four thousand votes in a specific area.”
This will be the last legislative period to secure a peace seat in Congress, raising concerns that the rights of victims are being exploited by traditional political interests or dominant armed groups.
“There is a very clear candidate who was the same candidate four years ago. Her name is Tatiana Gaona,” Pedraza noted.
Gaona, running for a second time for the Catatumbo peace seat, is known locally as “the onion,” as she often distributes packages of red onions – a high-quality product of her municipality, San Calixto – during her campaign. “La Cebollita,” as she is known in the region, has a political history that, while not involving violent crime, casts a shadow over her image due to connections with a political clan in Catatumbo.
“She arrives. Her uncle is Jairo Pinzón, who was the manager of the Ocaña hospital. That hospital is one of 14 hospitals in North Santander that were intervened during the COVID-19 pandemic because there is a presumed irregularity of more than 4 billion pesos in improper contracting in the hospital. So, her uncle becomes a political figure in the San Calixto area,” Pedraza detailed.
The Pinzón family has a long-standing political presence in the Catatumbo region. Gaona’s uncle faces further scrutiny. Pedraza explained that, “in addition to the process in the Attorney General’s Office for the 4 billion pesos, he was also denounced for the murder of a leader of a network of oversight organizations for enforced disappearances. His name was Jorge Solano, who was raising his voice in the Catatumbo area.”
In a video recorded in November 2020, Solano warned before his assassination: “Mr. Jairo Pinzón, you could not with the threat, you could not with the bribe or surely you will be able to through the judicial route. You have only one way left with me: that of weapons, that of murder.”
Solano’s accusations of corruption in North Santander led to his murder outside his home. Jorge Pinzón was cleared in the judicial process, but his cousin, Carlos Daniel Pinzón, was sentenced to 39 years in prison for the human rights defender’s murder.
Gaona’s family’s political machinery was evident in the 2022 elections, when she was linked to Ciro Rodríguez Pinzón, her cousin.
“Ciro is part of those networks of political operators of Governor William Villamizar. So to speak, William Villamizar’s eternal political operator. Ciro begins to also promote the candidacy or the candidacies of Tatiana,” Pedraza explained.
Despite having sufficient financial resources, Tatiana Gaona lost the previous race to Diógenes Quintero, who died in a recent plane crash while traveling on a Satena aircraft. Today, Gaona meets all the requirements to run for the peace seat. She was born in San Calixto. her father, Emiro Gaona, was murdered by guerrillas in 1988; she has no direct accusations against her, nor threats… that is, she has a clean record.
However, conversations – in video and audio – raise doubts about her candidacy. In one exchange, an unidentified speaker talks with alias Richard, the leader of the 33rd Front of the dissident group:
– Interlocutor: “I spoke with Dr. José Botello, and Dr. José Botello is firm, firm for the cause, firm with us, and the important thing is that we have a senator for real, from us, from the businessmen, from the people.”
– Richard: “No, man, count on that, count on that (inaudible) the brother already knows. There is a solid potential, (inaudible) there is a good political job, so we have what it takes, there we have what it takes.”
– Interlocutor: “We have what it takes, because with the votes of Tatiana to the Peace Chamber, they are going to get 11,000 votes, but the Senate is Botello.”
Jose Botello, a watchdog and Senate hopeful mentioned in the dialogue, appears in a conversation with alias Richard:
– Botello: “Super good, tomorrow at 9 in the morning…”
– Richard: “Yes.”
– Botello: “It’s a done deal.”
– Richard: “Tomorrow…”
– Botello: “And like all the commitments, yes…”
– Richard: “Okay, I sent you something, I sent it to the friends 200, did you hear?”
– Botello: “Ah, okay. Okay, good, thank you.”
– Richard: “Listen, and pay attention, let’s go all out, brother.”
– Botello: “Sir.”
– Richard: “We need to secure them, very secured.”
– Botello: “No, no, no, we’re in because we’re in, that’s for sure. With God’s facilitate and because logically we have to be diligent, right?”
– Richard: “Listen to me…”
– Botello: “And with your help, right?”
Researcher Diego Alejandro Pedraza, of the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation, said, “You’ll see many videos, rumors, reports on social media in the territory, that is, in Catatumbo, where videos of Commander ‘Richard,’ from the 33rd Front, are seen pressuring or looking for a way to pressure for votes in the name of Tatiana.”
Botello has dismissed the video as a fabrication. “The video was edited there, mounted. Because I am a lawyer and all my advice is generally done through video calls, they take my voice and image features. In the video anyone can see that cap cut appears half screen, there is no date, there is no my number. This is something they just want to do harm. This is a persecution due to my perform as a watchdog, which I make national and international complaints against politicians in Colombia,” he responded.
For the electoral witness from San Calixto, as for many residents of the region, this is a reality that is being attempted to be silenced. “Right now, she (Tatiana) is shaping up to be the chosen one. In one way or another, we must follow the guidelines that are given to us in the territory, right?” “(They have told us) that we must support, we must be attentive to the calls, we must be attentive to the convocations and so on.”
Artificial intelligence tools were used to analyze the video. The image analysis confirmed the presence of alias Richard. The audio verification indicated that the voices are human, though the confidence level was low due to the poor quality of the recording.
News Caracol repeatedly sought comment from candidate Tatiana Gaona regarding these allegations. She responded that she was on the campaign trail in Catatumbo and was losing signal. Interestingly, “La Cebollita” moves with ease through the rural areas and rivers of that region, where other candidates cannot.
“It is worrying that the peace seats, which are born within a political process with a peace process because this country said no more to a war, end up becoming a sanction for political structures or armed groups (…) a democracy co-opted by political structures associated with armed groups,” warned Diego Alejandro Pedraza, of the Pares Foundation.
It’s a dangerous formula that, without the use of a single bullet or the detonation of an explosive device or a threatening drone overhead, ends up co-opting democracy without making the slightest noise.
NOTICIAS CARACOL
