Less than 24 hours after raising suspicions about the counting of the first presidential round in Colombia, government candidate Iván Cepeda adopted a more cautious tone and stated that he had found no evidence of irregularities capable of compromising the results of the polls.
In a statement to the press this Monday (1st), Cepeda said that his team reviewed the data available after Sunday’s vote (31st) and has not identified, to date, elements that justify a formal challenge to the electoral process.
“We carried out the necessary checks. And so far, I have to say, because I am a serious and transparent person, we have not found facts of a dimension or depth that merit a statement about possible irregularities at this moment,” he stated.
The change of stance comes after a night of strong political tension. On Sunday, while the count was still underway, Cepeda had avoided recognizing the preliminary result and alleged the existence of discrepancies related to voter turnout and voting that he considered atypical in some locations.
The result ended up contradicting part of the expectations of the Colombian political market. Although surveys released before the vote indicated an advantage for the government candidate, the one who finished the first round in the lead was the right-wing representative, Abelardo de La Espriella, known as “El Tigre”.
According to official figures, the conservative candidate received 43.74% of the votes, while Cepeda received 40.9%, taking the dispute to a highly polarized second round.
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Petro questions result
Even before Cepeda’s demonstration this Monday, the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, had already questioned the legitimacy of the electoral process.
The president stated that he did not recognize the results and claimed that more than 800,000 people had been irregularly added to the electoral register in the weeks leading up to the vote.
The statements increased pressure on electoral authorities and provoked an immediate reaction from the opposing campaign.
De La Espriella accused the government of trying to delegitimize the popular will and asked for attention from security institutions given the possibility of contesting the result.
“[Faço] a call to the Public Force and the Homeland Army to activate the constitutional mechanism in the event that this criminal intends not to recognize the will of the Colombian people”, declared the conservative candidate when referring to Petro.
