The National Registrar, Alexánder Vega, has spent 72 hours praising his management at the head of the electoral entity on account of the development and delivery of results of the first presidential round. And this Tuesday, the head of the Registrar’s Office gave a revealing piece of information: before the end of the count, he assured that the difference compared to the pre-count was 0.1%, very distant from what happened in the legislative count, which is still in progress and whose difference between both stages of recount had more than 7% difference.
Different from what happened on March 13 due to the controversial finding of more than 1 million votes –some 600,000 of them for the Historical Pact–, following the first round the head of the Registry came out in defense of his management and the only one who doubts regarding the results was the candidate Gustavo Petro, who although he was first with (8.5 million supports) questioned that the software was not audited.
After the positive balance on election day, Vega announced that once the counting of the votes is completed, the ballots for the second round will be printed, in which the order of the candidates will be maintained, which means that first Rodolfo Hernández and his formula Marelen Castillo will appear, and at his side will be Gustavo Petro and Francia Márquez.
Vega was triumphant
In addition to Hernández and Petro, one of those who came out of last Sunday’s election was the Registrar Vega, since he had to deal with the blanket of doubts that different political sectors put on his management because the difference between the pre-count and the scrutiny of the congressional elections exceeded 7%, and generally that difference is 1%.
“Election day was a success, electoral observation was carried out, the resources of the National Registry and human resources put in their best effort to get the results quickly,” Vega explained on Caracol Radio.
Along these lines, the head of the Registrar’s Office explained that this Tuesday the first-level scrutiny, which refers to that of the municipalities, ended. “The difference between the pre-count on Sunday, May 29, and the count that ends today (Tuesday), will be 0.1%, it is the first time that the entity delivers a pre-count with total accuracy to the count,” he pointed out.
On the other hand, Vega called the fact that 45.09% of Colombians eligible to vote did not participate as “lunar” on election day. Although it was the lowest figure in the last 20 years, the Registrar assured that international observers warned regarding that figure, which they consider high.
Added to Vega’s positive balance was the Electoral Observation Mission of the European Union, whose observers highlighted “good organization” and valued “transparency” as well as the implementation of electoral procedures at the tables. “The Registrar’s Office adopted measures to facilitate access to the minutes to those parties that did not deploy witnesses at all the tables,” detailed the international observation mission.
This part of tranquility contrasts with the scrutiny that is ahead of the legislative elections, whose process is in the hands of the National Electoral Council (see To Know More). In addition, the only political sector that maintained doubts regarding the results of the pre-count made in the first round was the Historical Pact, which benefited the most from the initial scrutiny by the Senate.
Petrismo maintains doubts
Despite achieving superiority in the results, the Historical Pact –and Gustavo Petro himself– was the only political group that questioned the results of last Sunday. In this regard, they stated that there would have been irregularities following the pre-counting of the votes that would have affected Petro’s results.
“We are investigating and we have a hypothesis. There was a big problem, there was no audit of the software, which is 20 years old, that justice had said is weak, it was very important that it be audited and it might not be done, they did not want to do it, ”said the candidate in the media aforementioned.
Even Roy Barreras, one of the leaders of the Petro campaign, went further and questioned, without evidence, the results in favor of Hernández. “The Vichada thing is strange. In Vichada there is no effective internet. Nobody has Tiktok. Nobody knows Rodolfo Hernández. He didn’t even know that Vichada existed and strangely enough he won there. We already demand an international audit on the software to clear up all doubts”, said the senator.
Vega responded in this regard that a general evaluation of the entire electoral process will be made through a forensic audit so that all political sectors have peace of mind regarding the results. In addition, he clarified that the electoral body will now focus on the second round of June 19, which will cost some 700,000 million pesos.
