Although the people of Colombia went to the polls to exercise their right to vote, abstentionism won again in this first round of the presidential elections, as according to figures from the National Registry of Civil StatusIn the case of the first election, 45 percent of the citizens eligible to vote did not cast their ballots.
And the fact is that, although this abstentionism may have been reduced by five percentage points with respect to the elections held in 2018, the lack of interest on the part of the electorate remains very high, which constitutes a challenge for the second round of the contest to be held next June 19.
"In one way or another, it is a challenge for people who are still not convinced of the quality of democracy that can be in this country," said Rubén Darío Acosta, director of the Center for Latin American Socio-Legal Studies (CESJUL) and vice-president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers of Colombia.
In a roundtable discussion conducted for Global Exchange and Peninsula 360 Press during the counting of ballots, the expert determined that in addition to skepticism towards democracy, there is also strong questioning of the National Civil Registry.
"We must remember that less than two months ago, when the elections to the Congress of the Republic were held by the party of the Historical Pact, two million votes appeared that had not been counted and this, obviously, leaves such a bad taste that the same ruling party, the same political representatives of these traditional parties questioned precisely the registrar that they had appointed", he pointed out.
In this sense, he contemplated the possibility that there could be a recount of the votes, which could be difficult due to the number of candidates, "but otherwise the confidence in the electoral system is not the best, it is not in the best health conditions that we would like".
From Medellín, correspondents Alina Duarte and Heriberto Paredes agreed that although it was a quiet day, abstentionism was reflected at the polls despite the fact that one of the candidates considered to be the strongest, Federico Gutiérrez "Fico", is a native of Medellín, in addition to having been councilman and mayor of the same city.
Alina pointed out that Petro's strength was high for such a "conservative" city, as part of the electorate turned to the leftist candidate.
For his part, Heriberto highlighted the figure of Fico in Medellin, which, he said, was based a lot on the development of the "show" he had during his administration, where he did not reduce security figures, but generated a perception of increasing security in the city, although in concrete figures he did not do so.
However, he said, "it would seem that this spectacle as mayor of Medellin and all this controversial figure with his appearances in live broadcasts, even where he directly pursued certain thieves and all this character building, was not enough to somehow sustain Uribism as the second political force, at least in electoral figures".
What is certain is that Fico was left out of the running for the second electoral round, filling many with surprise, especially in Medellín.
In the second round, said Heriberto, "the panorama becomes even more complex for Petro", as Rodolfo Hernandez, who was seen as an unlikely candidate to repeat the race, gained strength.
From Cartagena de Indias, correspondent María José Martínez Castro, detailed that although people went sparsely to the polling stations in different parts of the city, there was a feeling of fear and apprehension.
In terms of data, he specified that this election day left that the predominant candidate in the Caribbean coast was Gustavo Petro, despite the fact that the percentage of participation was 46 percent, which meant an abstention rate of 54 percent, higher than the national average.
Alex Sierra, anthropologist and associate researcher at CESJUL said that this is a "historic moment for the country", since never before in the history of Colombia had a candidate obtained a first round presidential vote of 8.5 million votes, which represented 40 percent of the electoral result.
However, he pointed out that in these elections a much higher voter turnout was expected, but more than 45 percent of voters did not exercise their right to vote.
In this regard, he also pointed out that between 20 and 30 percent of the population in areas such as the Colombian Pacific went to the polls, "being the rural areas those that have the greatest difficulty in terms of access to political training and a certain capacity to be able to reach this type of power scenarios in the regions of Colombia".
In this sense, he explained that it is important to understand how, in some way, there is a "parallel of Latin American peoples that have these difficulties in terms of strengthening democracy".
To this, he added that the Registrar's Office, from the beginning, had serious technical and operational difficulties in counting the votes.
The recount, he pointed out, "is once again a pressing need in terms of painting the elections and being able to provide elements that allow greater transparency and legitimacy to an electoral process that continues to be very important for a country like Colombia".
This note was made with the support of a group of journalists who cover the first-round elections in Colombia, sponsored by Global Exchange in collaboration with Peninsula 360 Press.
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