The officialist presidential candidate for Colombia, Iván Cepeda, admitted this Monday that he does not have "evidence" to support the alleged irregularities denounced in the first round of the presidential elections held the previous day, in which the far-right contender Abelardo de la Espriella has emerged as the provisional winner.
"We have proceeded to carry out the necessary verifications and so far (...) we have not found evidence of facts that are of a dimension or depth that warrant a statement about potential irregularities," he declared during a press conference without a question-and-answer session.
Cepeda, who claimed to be "a serious and transparent person," made these statements after the "mechanism" responsible for the control and verification of the results had been "working intensely" after the polling stations closed.
The contender, who on the previous day spoke of an alleged "electoral discrepancy," has now justified the precision of his words. "The precedents that have occurred in other elections and (...) the difficulties we have had in this electoral process have motivated our statement that until a scrutiny is carried out by the commissions designated for that purpose, we will not comment on the results," he stated.
This shift in Cepeda's stance comes after supporting the claims of President Gustavo Petro, who denounced that the census "of the Bautista brothers' software (owners of the company Thomas Greg & Sons, involved in the process) has 800,000 additional people" compared to those who should be registered.
According to official data released by the Colombian Registry Office, De la Espriella will face Cepeda in a second presidential round on June 21, after obtaining 43.73% of the votes, compared to the 40.91% achieved by the Historical Pact candidate.