This Sunday (29), Colombians go to the polls, this time to elect the next president and vice president of Colombia.
Almost 39 million voters are called on this last Sunday in May, from 8 am to 4 pm (10 am to 6 pm, Brasília time), to elect the president who will take the reins of the country between 2022 and 2026.
Although only six presidential candidates remain due to two resignations, eight slates will appear in that order on the ballot, with their first and last names, logo and political movement or party.
The last two slates on the ballot, those headed by Luis Perez and Ingrid Betancourt, renounced their candidacies.
Unlike previous elections, when parties registered their own candidates, in Colombia it is increasingly common to form alliances across the political spectrum to elect presidential candidates.
In March, internal consultations were held in which three of the candidates running for this election were chosen from a wide range of pre-candidates.
The changes for the presidential elections
In the pre-counting of votes for the March legislative elections, reports of possible irregularities were made days after the announcement of the first results.
Later, Colombia’s National Civil Registry revealed the results of the final count that gave about 390,000 votes to the leftist movement, the Pacto Histórico, and caused other groups to lose seats in the Senate after the redistribution of votes.
At that time, secretary Alexandre Vega maintained that these irregularities are situations that can arise in electoral processes, but insisted that there are guarantees for all political parties and movements, and invited complaints to be presented to the National Electoral Council.
Alejandra Barrios, director of the Electoral Observation Mission (MOE), an independent body that monitors elections, told local media that although there were many errors by the secretary in counting votes, there was no question of fraud.
To avoid what happened in the pre-count of the legislative elections, Secretary Alexander Vega announced on April 21 that all voting juries will be changed and the guidelines for filling out the counting forms have been modified, after approval by a responsible committee.
Vega said that there were 5,109 polling stations in which there were complaints before the Public Ministry and the Attorney General’s Office for irregularities in the elections. The 15,000 jurors at these tables will be excluded from the presidential elections, to give “assurance”, added Vega, who said the plan was “well received” by political campaigns.
This Sunday (29), the first round takes place. If any of the candidates obtains a simple majority (half plus one) of the valid votes, there will be no need for a second round.
If there is no winner, the second round will be held on June 19 with the two candidates with the most votes.
The winner will be Iván Duque’s successor and will take office on August 7, 2022.
Source: CNN Brasil
I’m James Harper, a highly experienced and accomplished news writer for World Stock Market. I have been writing in the Politics section of the website for over five years, providing readers with up-to-date and insightful information about current events in politics. My work is widely read and respected by many industry professionals as well as laymen.
