Bogotá (EFE).- Far-right candidate Abelardo de la Espriella of the Defensores de la Patria (Defenders of the Homeland) movement, and leftist Iván Cepeda of the Pacto Histórico (Historical Pact), will compete in a presidential runoff election on June 21st, after receiving the most votes in the first round held on Sunday.
With 99.8% of polling stations counted, De la Espriella delivered a surprise by surpassing 10 million votes (43.73%). This result significantly outperformed the polls, which consistently placed him in second place, behind Cepeda.
The leftist candidate, Cepeda, came in second with 9.6 million ballots (40.91%). This is with less than 0.3% of the 122,020 polling stations still to be reported from Sunday’s elections, according to the National Registry (Registraduría Nacional), the body that organizes the elections.
However, since neither candidate secured the necessary “half plus one” majority of votes to be declared the winner in the first round, De la Espriella and Cepeda will proceed to a second round in three weeks.
Third place went to Senator Paloma Valencia of the Centro Democrático (Democratic Center) party, who received 1.6 million votes in this partial count (6.92%).
