Colombian President Gustavo Petro stated this Sunday that he does not recognize the results of the so-called “pre-count” in the first round of the presidential elections—a race in which far-right candidate Abelardo De la Espriella and ruling-party candidate Iván Cepeda advanced to the second round, according to data from the National Civil Registry.
“The so-called transmitted count carries no binding force; its data does not constitute official public record. As President, I do not accept the results of the pre-count,” the head of state posted on the social media platform X.
Petro asserted that his refusal to recognize the results stems from the fact that, “while the algorithms within the vote-counting and tallying software were supposed to remain static, they were altered on three separate occasions during the past week, adding 800,000 additional voter ID numbers belonging to individuals who do not appear in the officially submitted electoral census.”
According to the Colombian President, there currently exist “two censuses”: the official one, and the one generated by the software utilized by the Civil Registry—software owned by a private firm.
“The voting precincts that have already been challenged demonstrate that hundreds of thousands of votes were added without any corresponding voters actually having cast ballots. Therefore—and in accordance with the law—the only binding results that the President will heed and accept are those produced by the official electoral scrutiny commissions, which are presided over by judges of the Republic,” Petro added.
With 99.94 percent of the voting precincts tallied, De la Espriella secured 43.7 percent of the vote, while Cepeda garnered 40.9 percent.
The two candidates are set to face off on June 21st to determine who will become Colombia’s next president.
