The far-right wins by surprise the first round in Colombia and the left questions the result

BarcelonaThe far-right lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella has surprisingly won the first round of the Colombian presidential elections, with a turnout of 57.88%, and will contest the second round on June 21 with the leftist Iván Cepeda, the candidate of the left. President Gustavo Petro has cast doubt on the results.

The National Registry, the organizer of the elections, has reported that, with 99.99% of the polling stations reported, De la Espriella, of the far-right movement Defensores de la Patria, has received 10,361,413 votes (43.74%), more than 673,000 votes ahead of Cepeda, who obtained 9,688,245 votes (40.9%). The turnout was the highest in a first round since the Constitution of 1991 came into force in a traditionally abstentionist country, where voting is not mandatory and turnout at the polls is usually slightly over 50%.

"As president, I do not accept the preliminary count results," said President Petro, a supporter of Cepeda, adding that he would await the scrutiny to be carried out in the coming days.

For his part, De la Espirella proclaimed victory: "More than ten million Colombians have trusted in

El Tigre, they have joined the pack. We are going to the second round to defeat tyranny, absolutism. In 21 days we will change the history of Colombia forever."

The candidate for the Democratic Center, Paloma Valencia, with 1.6 million votes, took third place and is the big loser of these elections, with a result much lower than what she obtained in the primaries. In fourth place was Sergio Fajardo, of the center party Dignidad & Compromiso, with one million votes, representing 4.26%. Another center candidate, the former mayor of Bogotá Claudia López, placed fifth with 225,517 votes (0.95%).

Doubts of the left

In his speech after learning the results, Cepeda was less forceful than Petro and raised doubts about the official figures. "There is a discrepancy that we want to verify regarding the electoral roll, and it is not just any discrepancy: we are talking about 885,000 people," he said in Bogotà before his followers, without giving details about the origin of this figure.

De la Espriella, who appeared before his followers on a boat on the Magdalena River, in the Caribbean city of Barranquilla, responded to them: "Petro, Cepeda, you pair of criminals, do not dare, do not even think about ignoring the popular will because here there is a people who will confront you and defeat you."

Moves towards the second round

After this Sunday's votes, Senator Valencia immediately announced that she will support De la Espriella in the second round. However, his vice-presidential running mate, Juan Daniel Oviedo, stated that the votes they expected to receive from a good part of the right "have disappeared" due to De la Espriella's campaign, which he considered

Former Senator Roy Barreras, who barely received 14,108 votes (0.05%) and came in second to last place among the eleven candidates, announced his support for Cepeda's candidacy and asked the left-wing hopeful to seek the "three million votes" that he considers the political center obtained this Sunday to defeat De la Espriella.