Colombia’s election observers have expressed serious concerns about guarantees that would allow free and fair presidential elections.
Tensions in the South American country have been building after major irregularities in the March 13 congressional elections tanked public confidence in electoral authorities.
Voters will take to the polls on Sunday for the first round of the presidential elections “full of uncertainties and distrust,” the director of the Electoral Observation Mission (MOE) said Wednesday.
Polls have indicated that opposition Senator Gustavo Petro is likely to win the election after a run-off election that is set for June 19.
The main concerns
- The National Electoral Council (CNE) called off an audit the vote-counting system despite major discrepancies between the final results of the March 13 congressional elections and those initially announced by National Registrar Alexander Vega
- President Ivan Duque and other State officials have persistently interfered in electoral debates
- Inspector General Margarita Cabello violated international law by suspending elected officials on election meddling allegations
- Interior Minister Daniel Palacios was forced to revise the rules of the first round of the elections and a possible second round on June 19 after the government initially failed to specify the role of electoral witnesses in the process
- Migration has refused entry to the country to at least two foreign activists who were invited to observe the elections
The organizational chaos
Interior Minister Daniel Palacios on Wednesday issued a second decree specifying the rules of the elections after a decree that was published on Tuesday failed to mention the role of electoral witnesses.
Palacios’ latest improvisation followed an announcement by the CNE on Tuesday that the highest electoral authority had called of an audit of the computer systems used by the National Registry.
The CNE called off the independent audit after delays in the outsourcing of the process spurred potential contractors to withdraw their bids.
Consequently, the National Registry will be using the same systems that partially collapsed during the congressional elections and produced preliminary results that weren’t even close to the real results.
The concerns of independent observers
Because the flawed system have not been audited, the election will lack the “guarantee about the adequate functioning of the software that will be used for the scrutiny” of the election results, ICT expert Pilar Saenz of the Fundacion Karisma told newspaper El Espectador.
Juliana Uribe of Movilizatorio told the newspaper that the failure to audit the electoral software “is another thing that adds to the context that is generating a lot of distrust and uncertainty.”
There is no sense of guarantees in democracy… We have been put in a situation of uncertainty like never before.
Movilizatorio director Juliana Uribe
In an interview with Spain’s El Pais newspaper, MOE director Alejandra Barrios confirmed that voters and candidates are “full of uncertainties and distrust” as a consequence of the chaos and the government’s illegal meddling in the public debate.
Barrios previously warned that the accumulation of irregularities threatens peaceful elections.
Opposition claims to lack guarantees
The campaigns of Petro and his two opposition rivals, Rodolfo Hernandez and Sergio Fajardo, have all said that they lack guarantees of free and fair elections.
According to the opposition candidates, the lack of guarantees is due to Vega’s apparent incompetence, Duque’s illegal interferences in the election debates and the lack of independence of watchdog institutions.
With this government, guarantees got lost a long time ago. The seriousness has been lost and institutionalism has deteriorated in Colombia due to the way in which they manage the watchdog agencies and the way they have led the country. The National Registry has been pathetic. It is very harmful what happened.
Presidential candidate Sergio Fajardo
Cabello’s allegedly arbitrary abuse of to suspend elected officials has fueled opposition concerns that the inspector general may suspend the national registrar in the middle of the electoral process.
Coalition makes questionable fraud claims
Conservative former President Andres Pastrana, one of Duque’s closest allies, has actively been trying to get Vega removed from office ahead of Sunday’s first round.
Far-right former President Alvaro Uribe. Duque’s allegedly criminal patron, has claimed the congressional election results “can’t be accepted.”
The two former presidents and their allies have been promoting a confusing conspiracy theory in which they claim that the national registrar rigged the election to favor the opposition.
