The party in power in Colombia, the right-wing Democratic Center, asked this Saturday "a recount of all the votes" of the parliamentary elections held on March 13, in which the left achieved a historic breakthrough.
Although the vote count is not over yet, the party questioned the "unusual" difference between the pre-count of votes on Sunday and the partial results that were released gradually during the week.
"The election of any candidate should not be declared until a total, public, vote-by-vote recount is made (…) Without clarity, the new Congress would be illegitimate and many citizens would not be able to recognize the electoral result"warned the Democratic Center in a bulletin.
In last weekend’s votes, President Iván Duque’s party went from 51 to 30 seats in the two chambers of the 296-seat legislature.
For its part, the Historical Pact (left), led by former guerrilla fighter and presidential candidate Gustavo Petro, obtained an unprecedented bench of 41 parliamentarians, which according to preliminary scrutiny could be even higher.
"It is absolutely suspicious that the Pact of Gustavo Petro, exclusively, would have complained about specific sites where a strangely high percentage of votes appeared that did not appear in the pre-count"noted the Democratic Center.
Former President Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010), Duque’s political godfather, questioned on Twitter "the overwhelming vote of Petrismo" in an election that "leave all mistrust".
"This result cannot be accepted"launched Uribe, the party’s natural leader.
According to the most recent balance of the scrutiny of the election in the Senate, the left obtained 390,000 more votes compared to the pre-count released at the end of the electoral day on Sunday.
The support of the other political forces also varied: Democratic Center (-53,000 votes), Conservative Party (-12,000 votes), Liberal Party (+4,450) and the center coalition (-50,900).
President Duque called a meeting for Tuesday between electoral authorities, political parties, control bodies and independent observers to "clarify all the doubts that exist in front of" to the scrutiny that "has generated controversy".
In a statement, the Electoral Observation Mission of the European Union pointed out design flaws in the formats of the electoral authority where the voting juries recorded the results of each table.
According to the mission, it was "extremely complex" and "prone to (…) errors".
Petro, favorite in all the polls, pointed out on Twitter that this design error harmed the Historical Pact and meant a "ballot smear" in the initial count.