On March 21, national registrar Alexander Vega announced that in order to silence all rumors of vote count fraud in the general election, which took place on March 13, he would ask the National Electoral Council (CNE) for a recount of the Vote to the Senate of the Republic.
According to Vega, the final count of the House of Representatives was not significantly different from that of the voting juries at the end of Election Day. Therefore, it was best to count only the votes of the Senate, thereby legitimizing the full election of the Republic’s Congress, which will serve as the legislative body from 2022 to 2026.
“The important announcement before the meeting we had with delegates and members of the National Electoral Council: We and I as the National Registrar will ask that this be done to preserve institutionality, to achieve electoral truthfulness and to be consistent with the myriad inconsistencies in the E14 forms of the Senate and For the peace of the country, tomorrow (this March 22nd) I will request the recounting of all the tables of the Senate of the RepublicMentioned Vega.
As expected, this situation sparked controversy across the country considering that several political sectors support the vote recount as the right way to strengthen democracy in Colombia, while others assert that it is a tactic they are using by the inferior collectives will commit a real fraud.
One of the latter is the candidate for the Historic Pact Gustavo Petro, who assured on social networks that what was ordered by the registrar “is called fraud. The chain of custody of the votes ended on Saturday. At that point, they may fill the ballot bags. They disregard the decision of 5,000 judges. We are facing a real coup promoted by Uribe“.
However, there are more candidates who support the recount than those who don’t see it with good eyes. This showed the last presidential debate of the TV channel RCN, in which the four candidates present agreed to be in favor of Alexander Vega’s proposal.
The team’s candidate for Colombia, Federico Gutiérrez; that of the Esperanza Center, Sergio Fajardo; and the candidate of the Green Oxygen Party, Ingrid Betancourt, and that of the National Salvation Movement, Enrique Gómez Martínez, expressed the need to carry out a complete recount of the votes cast by the Colombians for the election of the new Senate so that the citizens can trust again.
“I demand a clear response to the half a million votes that have emerged from the Historic Pact bucketsaid Betancourt, recalling that after the last count, Petro’s coalition benefited from gaining at least three more seats in the upper house. They went from 16 Senate seats to 19.
A similar thought is that of “Fico” Gutiérrez, who asserted that it was illogical for Petro to say that the recount could not be carried out due to the lack of electoral guarantees if “the majority of the votes went to his party. I don’t agree when they say that the elections should not be recognized, that breeds violence.”
For his part Enrique Gómez pointed out that it was clear that Petro, in his absence from the debate, benefited most from the election controversy.
However, the strongest comment came from Sergio Fajardo, who not only supported the recount but also said that Alexander Vega should leave his position as national registrar “It’s not the referee who gives us guarantees that we can participate transparently in the elections.”
At the moment, it is unknown what Vegas’ future will be in the unit he leads, as well as the process that will be followed to count the Senate vote.