The Daily Journal — In the closest election contest in Colombia’s recent history, Iván Cepeda, candidate of the Historic Pact coalition and the Alliance for Life, announced Sunday night that he will not treat the preliminary vote count as the final result. With 99.9% of polling stations processed by the National Civil Registry, the official bulletin shows a margin of less than one percentage point: Abelardo de la Espriella received 12,959,542 votes (49.66%), while Cepeda secured 12,708,712 votes (48.70%).
Speaking before a crowd of supporters, Cepeda described the preliminary bulletin as a “non-binding” figure and announced the immediate deployment of an army of attorneys to challenge tens of thousands of polling stations nationwide, opening a period of profound institutional uncertainty.
“We acknowledge tonight’s preliminary count as information that remains neither official nor binding. We recognize its initial result, but we must also inform the country that our network of observers, along with tens of thousands of attorneys, has begun challenging 33,000 polling stations nationwide. The scrutiny process must examine each one individually,” the political leader declared.
The candidate also urged his electoral oversight committees to maintain constant vigilance over the tally sheets.
“Once the final count concludes and authorities complete the corresponding verifications, we will recognize the official result that emerges from that process.”
Defending his legacy and warning the opposition
Surrounded by the parties that make up his coalition, Cepeda thanked social movements, Afro-Colombian communities, Indigenous peoples, and, in particular, young voters and rural populations who mobilized throughout the country’s peripheral regions. He also defended the record of current President Gustavo Petro, arguing that his administration lifted four million people out of poverty and launched Colombia’s first agrarian reform.
Addressing Abelardo de la Espriella’s political bloc directly, Cepeda warned against any attempt to reverse the social reforms achieved during the past four years.
“We will not allow anyone to roll back the social gains we have built, and we will defend them through democratic strength, civic mobilization, and political action (…). We will not allow anyone to take away the living wage, and we will not allow anyone to strip senior citizens of their pension benefit,” he emphasized.
A divided country and a call for a “National Agreement”
The Historic Pact candidate concluded by acknowledging that the election results reveal a mathematical divide within Colombian society, split almost evenly. Given this reality, he proposed a framework for dialogue aimed at preventing institutional paralysis, provided all sides show mutual respect.
Cepeda reminded his opponents that his coalition represents nearly half of the country and stressed that “people must engage in dialogue with us rather than impose decisions on us arbitrarily.”
The left-wing leader invited the other half of the electorate to pursue a broad national pact.
“Our calm, thoughtful, and rational invitation is to engage in dialogue and seek a national agreement that allows us to solve the country’s major structural and historic challenges.”
