{"id":510476,"date":"2026-06-06T16:27:58","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T20:27:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/en\/uncategorized\/cepeda-will-investigate-alleged-vote-buying-by-far-right-campaign-and-insists-on-debate\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T16:27:58","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T20:27:58","slug":"cepeda-will-investigate-alleged-vote-buying-by-far-right-campaign-and-insists-on-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/international\/cepeda-will-investigate-alleged-vote-buying-by-far-right-campaign-and-insists-on-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"Cepeda will investigate alleged vote buying by far-right campaign and insists on debate"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Bogot\u00e1.-<\/strong> The left-wing Colombian presidential candidate Iv\u00e1n Cepeda<\/strong> announced this Saturday an investigation into the campaign of his rival, the far-right Abelardo de la Espriella<\/strong>, for alleged vote buying and other irregularities, and insisted on holding a debate before the second round of the election on June 21st.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“My campaign, through multiple channels, is receiving information that we are going to document regarding potential irregular and illicit financial dealings by Mr. De la Espriella’s campaign,” said Cepeda in a statement to the press in Cali, capital of Valle del Cauca (southwest).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Cepeda, who was second in last Sunday’s first round, said he had “received information about an alleged vote-buying scheme or the movement of large amounts of money for that purpose in different parts of the country” by the De la Espriella campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You may be interested in: <\/strong>Abelardo supporters take to the streets wearing the Colombia national team jersey<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pro-government candidate said that “a dirty campaign has been deployed” against him using artificial intelligence,<\/strong> and for that reason, he will initiate legal action against De la Espriella and his team, for which he has appointed lawyer Miguel \u00c1ngel del R\u00edo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Given that Mr. De la Espriella is going down the dirty path of artificial intelligence manipulation, social media campaigns (…) and also moving the vote not through argument, not with a platform, but through other means, we are going to take action,” reported Cepeda, who did not take questions from the media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, the leftist candidate said that he will ask the management of the private channels RCN and Caracol and the public television RTVC to organize a debate between him and the far-right candidate, a decision subject to the reach that those media outlets have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cepeda insisted that “the country is anxiously awaiting” this meeting, to which Colombians have a “right,” even though during the first round of the presidential elections he refused to debate with the other candidates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To speed up this meeting, Cepeda asked De la Espriella to appoint two commissioners and thus advance the proposed debate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“Perhaps he (De la Espriella) doesn’t like the rules, that’s his procedure (…) but in a democracy, that’s how it is. These are basic and minimum rules. So we return to demanding that he appoint his commissioners so that we can move forward,” said Cepeda.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

De la Espriella, from the Defenders of the Homeland movement and called ‘the tiger’ by his followers, was the most voted candidate in last Sunday’s first round, with 10.3 million votes (43.78%), while Cepeda, from the Historic Pact, the party of the Colombian president, Gustavo Petro, obtained 9.7 million (40.98%).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bogot\u00e1.- The left-wing Colombian presidential candidate Iv\u00e1n Cepeda announced this Saturday an investigation into the campaign of his rival, the far-right Abelardo de la Espriella, for alleged vote buying and other irregularities, and insisted on holding a debate before the second round of the election on June 21st. “My campaign, through multiple channels, is receiving […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":510477,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[95],"tags":[44078,13631,43715,40743],"class_list":["post-510476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-international","tag-abelardo-de-la-espriella","tag-colombia","tag-ivan-cepeda","tag-votes"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/phj1q1-28Nu","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/06\/Copia-de-Copia-de-Post-de-Instagram-Feliz-Cumpleanos-Sencillo-Minimalista-Azul-1000-x-500-px-2026-06-06T162514.043.jpg","dum_api":{"author_name":"Elsa Cesilia Feliz","author_image":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/cropped-elsa-cesilia-96x96.jpg","categories_name":["International"],"featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cdn.deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/06\/Copia-de-Copia-de-Post-de-Instagram-Feliz-Cumpleanos-Sencillo-Minimalista-Azul-1000-x-500-px-2026-06-06T162514.043.jpg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/78"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=510476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/510477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}