Partido de la U Colombian presidential candidate Juan Manuel Santos won the first round presidential election but with 99.71% of the votes counted, failed to receive the more than 50% of the vote required to win outright. The “Uribista” candidate will now face-off in a second round election with Green Party candidate Antanas Mockus.
Santos has 46.57% of the 14.760,255 votes counted, followed by Mockus with 21.49%, according to the Colombian Registry Office‘s 23rd bulletin.
Cambio Radical candidate German Vargas Lleras is faring better than voter polls predicted with 10.13% of the votes counted. The former Uribista is followed by Polo Democratico’s Gustavo Petro with 9.16%, then Conservative Party candidate Noemi Sanin with 6.15% and Liberal Party candidate Rafael Pardo with 4.38%.
A total of 14,710,489 Colombians out of the 29,983,279 citizens eligible to vote took part in the elections, which constitutes a 49% voter turnout.
Santos and Mockus will now go head-to-head in a second round election scheduled for June 20.
Despite violence in rural areas of the country, elections went calmer than ever, Colombia’s Interior and Justice Minister said.
The turnout was higher than ever. 49% of Colombians elegible to vote went to the polling stations, 4% more than in 2006.