“The Colombian left refuses to acknowledge defeat and maintains hope in the vote count”

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Bogotá, Jun 21.- The campaign of leftist candidate Iván Cepeda refused this Sunday to concede defeat in Colombia’s presidential runoff against his rival, the far-right Abelardo de la Espriella, due to the narrow margin of votes, less than 1% in the preliminary count, and maintains hope in the final scrutiny.

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According to the preliminary count, De la Espriella won the Presidency this Sunday by obtaining 12.9 million votes (49.65%), a narrow lead of less than 250,000 ballots (0.94 percentage points) over Cepeda, with 99.91% of the polling stations counted by the National Registry, although that did not dampen the hopes of the leftist’s supporters.

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With Colombian flags on their backs, supporters of Cepeda and his running mate, Aída Quilcué, gathered at the Royal Center event venue in Bogotá, where they remained alert to every bulletin published by the Registraduría (electoral authority) on the giant screens at the venue.

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You can read: Milei on the potential victory of De la Espriella: The lion and the tiger roar in Latin America

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The first results were received with the unanimous shout from the attendees of “It is lived, it is felt, Cepeda is president,” while they held signs with the candidate’s image.

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A tense calm was maintained at the site as the publication of the bulletins from the National Registry, the entity that organizes the elections, progressed, which little by little favored the far-right candidate.

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The faces of the supporters, mostly dressed in white t-shirts, showed concern and distress, although they did not lose hope and raised sporadic chants in favor of Cepeda and Quilcué.

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As the preliminary count progressed, the gap between both candidates narrowed, which injected energy into the leftist’s voters, who changed their demeanor and began asking to wait for the scrutiny results.

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“We received the results with a bit of pain, but also a lot of hope. In the recount we can get a different result, as we have done in other elections,” one of the supporters of the Historic Pact, the party of Cepeda and Colombian President Gustavo Petro, assured EFE.

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“They shall not pass!”, “Scrutiny!”, “Cepeda, friend, the people are with you!” and “Yes we can!” chanted the followers to convey an image of resistance and hope in the face of the tightest runoff results in the country’s recent history.

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Cepeda, Quilcué and other representatives of the Historic Pact arrived at the scene after 18:30 local time (23:30 GMT) and were received with shouts of support before addressing the public and the press present.

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“Thanks to all Colombians, to the students, businessmen and businesswomen (…) thanks to the women and sexual diversities. To all those who accompanied us to obtain these results,” said Cepeda surrounded by the members of his campaign.

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After the candidate’s words, some supporters asked the rest to mobilize to the Corferias exhibition center to oversee the vote count.

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“We are not defeated. We are organized, with our heads held high. We are going to continue monitoring whichever government it may be because we are the people,” another Cepeda voter affirmed to EFE.

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