Weekly Report - 18 October 2012 (WR-12-41)

In May this year national senator Eduardo Carlos Merlano refused to take a breathalyser test when stopped by traffic police in Barranquilla, the capital of the Colombian department of Atlántico. His refusal cost the commander of the metropolitan police, General Oscar Pérez Cárdenas, his job within days of the episode. A few months later, Merlano himself was sanctioned by the office of the prosecutor general, who removed him from office and banned him from holding an elected post for 10 years. His removal from the congressional upper chamber means the Partido de la U (PU) must replace him with the candidate who came in second place during the 2010 elections, which inadvertently has created another potential scandal: the ‘remedy’ may be worse than the original ‘illness’.

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