Gustav Petro, who leads the voting intention polls of Colombians announced through his social networks that he is suspending his presence in electoral debates “until the transparency of the vote is guaranteed.”
(The Registrar will ask the CNE to recount the votes of the Senate).
This was announced by the candidate this Monday, hours after the registrar Alexander Vega Rocha reported that he will ask the National Electoral Council make a recount of votes for the Senate elections in the face of multiple complaints of irregularities in the preliminary count.
“We will act with maximum prudence and we ask the international oversight bodies to act promptly. At this time there is no transparent chain of custody over the votes already counted”, Peter said.
I suspend my presence in electoral debates until the transparency of the vote is guaranteed.
We will act with maximum prudence and we ask the international oversight agencies to act promptly.
At this time there is no transparent chain of custody over the votes already counted.
– Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) March 21, 2022
CONTROVERSY
The controversy began the day after the elections when the coalition of the Historical Pact, led by Petro, denounced that they had not counted nearly 500,000 votes to the Senate.
The scrutiny of 97%, published on Friday by the Registrar, awarded him 390,152 votes more than the 2,302,847 that had been reported in the preliminary count, with which he reached 2,692,999 votes and became the move with the largest difference between the two data.
(Duque calls the Electoral Guarantees Table for this Tuesday).
The projections show that with this result the Historical Pact can obtain 19 seats in the Senatethree more than those obtained in the preliminary count, while they would subtract one seat from the Conservative Party, which would remain with 15, and the Democratic Center and the Alianza Verde-Centro Esperanza Coalition, which would drop to 13 each.
Given this, the Democratic Centerthe government party founded by former president Álvaro Uribe, raised the suspicion that there may be ballots altered by the juries of the tables, which, added to the protests from the left, has called into question the work of the Registry .
This situation created a consensus among the parties of all stripes: the recount proposed today by Vega is necessary and is expected to be approved by the CNE tomorrow.
President Iván Duque called a meeting of the Electoral Guarantees Table for tomorrow so that the authorities “can clarify all the doubts that exist regarding those polling places related to the election of the Senate, which have generated controversy.”
COUNT SUPPORT
Senator-elect Roy Barreras, spokesman for the Historic Pact, highlighted the decision to request a recount and said that this coalition was the first to “ask for the general count” because that’s where “there are the votes”.
(Uribe asks for a recount of the votes and says that the result cannot be accepted).
“If they are going to recount, welcome the general recount but without altering the electoral calendar and without believing that with that they will stop proclaiming the victory of the Pact and of our majorities, which are evident,” Barreras expressed in a video, in which he estimated that his coalition could even reach 25 senators in the count.
For his part, Miguel Uribe Turbay, an elected senator from the Democratic Center and who obtained the highest number of votes in the country in the March 13 elections, considers that the recount is necessary to “guarantee the absolute confidence of these elections” and that “these irregularities do not happen again in the face of the presidential election”.
BRIEFCASE
With information from AFP
