MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Monday, June 1st 2026 - 07:07 UTC
A few hours after polls closed, President Gustavo Petro publicly rejected the provisional results and denounced without evidence a variation in the electoral roll of around 800,000 voters
Far-right lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella took first place in the first round of the Colombian presidential elections held on Sunday, in a result that contradicted all previous polls and immediately opened an institutional crisis. With 99% of polling stations counted in the preliminary tally, De la Espriella, of the Defensores de la Patria movement, reached 43.7% of the vote —some 10.3 million ballots—, while leftist senator Iván Cepeda, of the ruling Pacto Histórico, obtained 40.9% with 9,649,081 votes. The runoff will be held on 21 June and the inauguration is scheduled for 7 August.
A few hours after polls closed, President Gustavo Petro publicly rejected the provisional results and denounced without evidence a variation in the electoral roll of around 800,000 voters. The president said he would only recognize the definitive scrutiny conducted by the judges of the Republic. Candidate Cepeda also disowned the preliminary results and requested clarifications on “atypical voting patterns” recorded in a number of polling stations that his team is verifying. De la Espriella responded from Barranquilla with a confrontational message directed at the president and his candidate: “Do not dare to disown the results,” he said, and called on the “security forces” and the Army to “activate the constitutional mechanism” in case the executive attempts to “disregard the will of the Colombian people.” The lawyer, 47, held that democracy must be maintained “by reason or by force.”
