“Uribista” Juan Manuel Santos won the majority of votes of Colombians living abroad, in the first round of the Andean nation’s presidential elections held Sunday.
Of the 410,485 Colombian nationals eligible to vote, living in 60 countries, only 81,561 exercised their democratic right. In the expat vote, Santos led the pack with 47,184 votes, which equals 58.21% of the total expat vote.
Green Party candidate Antanas Mockus won 24,957 votes, 30.79% of the total expat vote. The former Bogota mayor was followed by Cambio Radical candidate German Vargas Lleras with 3,591 votes (4.43%) and Polo Democratico’s Gustavo Petro with 2,425 (2.99%).
In Spain, amid rumors that illegal Colombian immigrants would be detained if they turned up to vote, only 15.4% of Colombian expats in the Iberian nation cast their vote. However, according to Spanish authorities, immigration papers were not requested.
In Madrid, according to the Colombian Embassy, of the 55,095 Colombian expats registered to vote in the European city, only 8,530 did so. Embassy representative Augusto Garcia said that this figure was average and expected.
In Barcelona 1,935 of the 11,766 Colombians enrolled to vote did so.
In China and India, Colombian Embassies reported that voting had occurred without incident.
Colombians turned out en masse to vote in Venezuela, with a line of 29,000 Colombians waiting outside the Embassy in Caracas to cast their ballot.
Voting in Argentina also reportedly went off without a hitch.
Because no candidate received the over half of the vote needed to win the first round election outright, the two most popular candidates, Santos and Mockus, will now face-off in a second round election scheduled for June 20.
