Abelardo wins according to preliminary report!
Bogotá, June 21 (EFE).-
The far-right Abelardo de la Espriella won the presidential election runoff in Colombia this Sunday with 12,931,544 votes (49.65%), a narrow lead of 245,738 ballots (0.95 percentage points) over the leftist Iván Cepeda, according to 99.65% of the preliminary count processed by the National Registrar’s Office.
Cepeda, from the Pacto Histórico, the party of Colombian President Gustavo Petro, receives 12,684,994 votes, equivalent to 48.70%, the preliminary count from the electoral body indicates.
The difference between the two candidates is much narrower than what the polls predicted, meaning it will be necessary to wait for the official scrutiny in the coming days to confirm the final result.
The advantage held by De la Espriella, from the Defensores de la Patria movement, is less than half of the 659,134 votes by which he won the first round on May 31st, indicating that although both candidates increased their total vote share, Cepeda did so at a higher rate.
Likewise, today there were 426,013 blank votes, equivalent to 1.63%, and 220,507 null votes (0.83%), while 29,455 ballots were left unmarked, which equals 0.11%.
Regarding the results of this tight vote, President Petro stated that “there are many irregularities,” reiterating that the final word will belong to the official scrutiny carried out by more than 9,000 judges of the Republic and notaries.
Abelardo de la Espriella presented himself as the president-elect of Colombia on his personal account on the social network X.
“President-elect of Colombia for the Defenders of the Homeland movement. Father and Husband. Patriot. Lawyer. Businessman. Firm for the Homeland,” reads the description of the far-right politician on the account @ABDELAESPRIELLA on X. EFE
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