Cepeda walks back fraud suspicions due to lack of evidence – Colombia News

The runner-up in the first round of Colombia’s presidential election, Senator Ivan Cepeda, backtracked on allegations that the surprise success of far-right candidate Abelardo de la Espriella was due to fraud.

At a press conference, Cepeda said that “we have not found any evidence of incidents that would… be of such a nature or severity as to warrant a statement regarding any potential irregularities.”

According to the leftist candidate, a team of electoral witnesses from his political party, the Historic Pact, “has been working intensely tonight. We have proceeded to carry out the necessary verifications” without finding anything significant.

Visibly upset by the first round results, Cepeda on Sunday refused to accept the preliminary vote count that put his far-right opponent in the lead with 44% to 41%.

President Gustavo Petro, another Historic Pact leader, also dismissed the preliminary results and said he would wait for the official results that follow a scrutiny of tally sheets.

Registrar Hernan Penagos and Inspector General Gregorio Eljach said on Monday that the formal vote count was almost complete and resulted in no challenges from any of the participants.

Petro and the Historic Pact have been pushing for a new vote-counting system since 2022 when more than 800,000 vote got lost in the preliminary count of the congressional elections.

The verification of congressional votes in March of this year resulted in extra seats in the House of Representatives.

With no fraud to blame for the far-right’s surprise victory, Cepeda and his leftist supporters will have to close a 700,000-vote gap to prevent a victory of the candidate who vowed the “eviscerate the left” after taking office.