The leftist candidate in Colombia, (Pacto Histórico), an ally of the current Colombian president (Colombia Humana), avoided recognizing defeat in Sunday’s election (June 21, 2026). According to the preliminary count, (Defensores de la Patria, right), with 49.66% of the votes, against 48.70% for Cepeda. The difference does not reach 300 thousand votes. Now, the country will carry out an official recount of the votes, a process called scrutiny which, by law, begins the day after the election.
“We acknowledge the initial results, but we must also report that our group of observers – tens of thousands of lawyers – are contesting the results at 33,000 polling stations across the country”declared Cepeda, according to the website .
Cepeda asked that “the entire electoral monitoring team is attentive to the scrutiny of each of these polling stations, their records and results”. He stated that he will only recognize the election result after the vote verification is completed.
SCRUTINY OF VOTES
Colombia will now carry out an official vote recount process, called scrutiny. By law, it begins the day after the election and is carried out by commissions made up of judges, notaries and other election officials.
The groups analyze the documents completed in the sections, check for inconsistencies and evaluate challenges presented by the campaigns. In certain cases, they may determine a new vote conference.
The final numbers may differ slightly from the pre-count. In the 1st round, the variation was less than 0.1%.
ABELARDO DE LA ESPRIELLA
Born in Bogotá, De la Espriella is a lawyer, 47 years old and has never run for elected office.
Known as “El Tigre”, he is part of Defensores de la Patria and built his campaign with references to right-wing leaders, such as (Republican Party), from the United States, (La Libertad Avanza), from Argentina, and (Nuevas Ideas), from El Salvador.
Trump public to the candidate before the 2nd round.
Among the proposals presented by De la Espriella are:
- reformulate the management and command bodies of public institutions;
- combat drug trafficking, corruption and mismanagement;
- dismantle armed groups and parallel power structures;
- reform the public bidding system;
- reduce the size of the State by up to 25%;
- reduce taxes, energy costs and rules for the productive sector.
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