Yidispolitics Scandal

Yidispolitics is the name given to the public scandal in Colombia, which began in April 2008, when the ex-politician Yidis Medina admitted to have received bribes to vote in favor of the re-election project, which changed the constitution and allowed Álvaro Uribe Vélez to become president for a second term.

[1] On June 25 of 2008, after several days of investigation, the Supreme Court of Colombia found Yidis Medin guilty of bribery and sentenced her to 47 months of house arrest.

[3] There was a lot of speculation about the controversial reform, until April 2008 when Yidis Medina declared herself guilty of bribe, when she assured to a Colombian magazine El Espectador that the government did not fulfill the deal, and that she was about to write a book with all the information about the case with the help of Teodolindo Avendaño.

[4] On April 20, 2008, several days after El Espectador interview, TV news show Noticias Uno broadcast a video where ex Congresswoman Yidis Medina admits before Daniel Coronell, the TV news director, to have accepted bribes from President Álvaro Uribe himself and from some of his closest collaborators, including Sabas Pretelt (back then, the Interior & Justice Minister) to change her vote in the First Commission of the Representatives' Chamber in the law project applied by the Government to allow the immediate presidential re-election that would give Uribe a chance to aspire to a second term of office.

Besides, he referred to his collaborators Pretelt and Palacio Betancourt as honest people with impeccable behaviour, and accused journalist Daniel Coronell of having covered up the false crime.