HP.com.co investigation | August 22, 2026

On February 4, substitute judge Hollman Ibáñez applied a rule many people did not want to hear: anyone who has already taken part in one primary cannot enter another in the same electoral cycle. That technical vote kept Iván Cepeda out of the March 8 “Frente por la Vida” consultation.
This was not a procedural footnote. Had Cepeda been allowed in and won —and at that moment he was the strongest name in that bloc— the state reimbursement for an inter-party consultation, paid at a far higher rate per vote than a runoff, would have put a check in the range of 20 billion pesos in his campaign’s hands. That money was not symbolic. It was cash for organization, advertising and machine politics in the most expensive stretch of the race.

That check was never issued. The ruling stopped it.

What followed was pressure: presidential posts that included the judge’s photo, a criminal complaint for malfeasance, and threats against Ibáñez and his family, including a message he attributed to the ELN. The political signal was blunt: rule against the project then in power, and you pay a personal price.
Now the price may become institutional.

On Tuesday, August 25, at 5:00 p.m., the full Congress elects the nine National Electoral Council magistrates for 2026–2030. Those nine will decide reimbursements, sanctions, primaries, legal personhood of parties, and the rules for the regional elections. This is not paperwork. It is the court that will interpret, from now on, the same statute Ibáñez applied. A slate is being negotiated. The Historical Pact is pushing for two seats, including names close to Cepeda and to Petro’s circle. If that quota lands alongside friendly votes, the CNE can again become a loyalty forum instead of a technical one. If senators vote independently and put legality ahead of political friendship, the court has a chance to be actually impartial — not “partial” in the way the previous composition was accused of being.

The issue is not whether anyone liked the substitute judge. The issue is whether Colombia wants an electoral court that applies the law even when it hurts, or one that bends it to hand power back to the same project that lost at the ballot box.

August 25 is the vote on that question. HP.com.co will record it name by name.