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Bogotá, Jun 21.- The second presidential round this Sunday in Colombia had a record turnout of 63.59%, after more than 26.3 million people voted in an election narrowly won by far-right candidate Abelardo de la Espriella, who secured 12.9 million votes (49.66%), according to preliminary data.
n” “nThe figure was confirmed by the National Registry (electoral authority), which with 99.98% of the polling stations reported in the preliminary count, also gives leftist candidate Iván Cepeda 12.7 million votes (48.70%).
n” “nBlank votes were 426,788, equivalent to 1.63%; while 29,498 ballots were not marked (0.11%), and null votes totaled 220,761, which correspond to 0.83%.
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The sum of null and unmarked votes is equivalent to 0.94%, which is almost the difference that De la Espriella has over Cepeda.
“To all the citizenry, thank you for the task you performed. To all the institutions, thank you for the way we coordinated this work to achieve a historic election day, with levels of participation that had never been recorded in our country,” said the National Registrar, Hernán Penagos, in Bogotá.
n” “nHistorically in Colombia, electoral participation levels usually range between 50% and 55%, so this Sunday’s elections mark a milestone in that regard, as well as in the narrow margin between De la Espriella and Cepeda, whose official result will have to be ratified by the scrutiny.
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“We have reached this final stage with the narrowest margin of votes recorded in any runoff election in Colombian electoral history,” stated Cepeda, upon acknowledging the preliminary result in a statement to his followers in Bogota.
n” “nRegarding the regions, departments such as Cundinamarca stand out as one of the areas with the highest participation percentages at 73.45%, while Bogota records 70.65%. Santander (68.96%), Antioquia (62.93%), and Valle del Cauca (61.38%) also had high voter turnout.
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