8 23. The State argued that the Court lacks competence to hear the merits of this case owing to the absolute and deliberate absence of the alleged victim from the electoral process commencing on October 6, 2005. In this regard, it indicated that, since Mr. Castañeda Gutman did not submit his request for registration of his candidacy within the established time frame – in other words between January 1 and 15, 2006 – “[…] the electoral authority was actually and legally unable to consider the merits of the admissibility of the registration of [Mr. Castañeda Gutman] to take part in the electoral process.” This situation made it impossible to consider him as a candidate and prevented his participation in the electoral process. In addition, the State indicated that submission of the request within the time frame is the requirement sine qua non for taking part in the electoral process and, if applicable, for exhausting the subsequent jurisdictional procedures established as a means of filing an objection. This requirement cannot be substituted, avoided or anticipated. Based on the foregoing, the State maintained that the Commission should have proceeded to declare the petition inadmissible, “[…] owing to an evident failure to exhaust domestic remedies […] due to [Mr. Castañeda Gutman’s] failure to submit a request at the time allocated for registration within the electoral process.” 24. The Commission stated that the application does not refer to the electoral process commenced in October 2005, but to the inexistence in the domestic sphere of a simple and effective remedy to claim the constitutionality of political rights. Mr. Castañeda Gutman’s request for registration of his candidacy of March 5, 2004, was not rejected based merely on the formal issue of the time frame for registration, but also on the merit of the request, because it was considered that the candidacy was not sponsored by a national political party, so that it was not worth the victim insisting on his registration again. The State confuses the privilege of exercising a right protected by the Convention, with the obligation to exhaust a domestic remedy, because the presentation of the candidacy request is not a remedy, since its purpose is the exercise of a right and not to establish whether there has been a human rights violation in order to remedy it. Lastly, the Commission stated that, since the violation of rights arose from the inexistence of an effective remedy, the exception established in Article 46(2)(a) of the Convention was applicable. Based on these arguments, it requested that this preliminary objection should be rejected. 25. The representatives argued that Mr. Castañeda Gutman did not submit his candidacy during the candidacy registration period established in Article 177 of the COFIPE because this referred to candidacies postulated by political parties, so that this time frame applied only to candidacies postulated by political parties; and, since the laws did not provide for the postulation of non-party candidacies, this time frame could not be applicable in his case. Moreover, they added that IFE never had any intention of registering Mr. Castañeda Gutman’s candidacy, as it fallaciously attempted to establish by stating that the request was not presented within the time frame, because its ruling makes it clear that it was not possible to admit the request, not only on a temporal basis, but also because the COFIPE precludes the registration of candidates without a party. Lastly, they indicated that Mexican federal laws absolutely prohibit candidates to postulate for elected office unless they are presented by a party, and it is this situation that constitutes the fundamental and substantial issue of the instant case. * * * 26. Regarding Mr. Castañeda Gutman’s alleged failure to participate in the electoral process, the Court considers that the submission of a request for registration of a candidacy relates to the possibility of exercising a right and not to the obligation to exhaust domestic remedies. The submission of a request for registration of a candidacy is not a remedy,