Colombian far-left Senator and presidential candidate Iván Cepeda acknowledged on Monday that his team has found no irregularities to suggest fraud in Sunday’s first round presidential election in which he came in second place.
“We have carried out the necessary investigations and, so far, because I am a serious and transparent person, I must say that we have not yet found any evidence of facts of such magnitude or gravity as to warrant a statement regarding possible irregularities,” Cepeda told reporters during a Monday post-election press conference.
“But I must also make it clear: I am an honest and thorough person, and we have found no evidence, indications, or irregularities,” he stressed.
Cepeda’s statements stand in contrast with claims espoused by outgoing far-left President Gustavo Petro, who insists that the results are not trustworthy and that he will not accept them. Cepeda is running in the election as the candidate of Petro’s ruling Historic Pact coalition. If elected, he seeks to continue Colombia’s current far-left government as Petro’s “successor.” Petro, a former member of the Marxist M19 terrorist guerrilla, is Colombia’s first leftist president in history.
Colombia held the first round of its 2026 presidential election on Sunday. The election, which featured 13 different presidential candidates on the ballot, concluded with outsider Colombian conservative candidate Abelardo de la Espriella in first place with 43.74 percent of the votes against Cepeda’s 40.90.
As no candidate obtained the 50-percent majority required to win in the first round, de la Espriella and Cepeda will head to an upcoming June 21 runoff election to determine who will become the president of Colombia for the next four years.
Moments after Colombian authorities announced the results of Sunday’s election, Petro took to social media to denounce the results and express that he will not recognize them. As Breitbart News reported, the far-left president justified his decision on the grounds that the election was administered by Thomas Greg & Sons, a private security company that has provided services for the Colombian state over the past six decades. According to Petro, the company allegedly added 800,000 “ghost” voters to the electoral registry.
Cepeda, referring to Petro’s claims, reportedly asserted that there are “two rather confusing situations” in Sunday’s election: the “discrepancy” in voter registry alluded by Petro and allegations of “atypical voting patterns” in an unspecified number of voting stations.
“Only once the vote-counting committees have fully clarified this matter will we comment on tonight’s results,” Cepeda said.
Petro has not presented evidence to substantiate his accusations against the company or justify his stance on Sunday’s election results at press time.
The Colombian president reiterated his accusations in a social media post on Tuesday with what he described as the “substantiated evidence of possible fraud” that he said to be capable of submitting “to the competent authorities.”
Petro emphasized that his “commitment to my people and the love for my country, for which I have fought my entire life, makes me risk everything by transmitting it, and I am going to do it right now.”
According to Petro, who once again did not present evidence of his claims, the voting software was “modified” twice in the days before the election on May 26, 2026, altering the electoral census and the number of polling stations and tables. This resulted in the alleged inclusion of 885,409 new voters to the registry and discrepancies in the number of installed voting tables.
“I can prove these facts before the competent authority,” Petro wrote. “In the vote count of the Bautista brothers, 5,300 tables appear with more than 300 votes on the day, which is the maximum figure that can be voted in the election hours, many reaching 700 votes.”
“It is in those tables where the advantage of 635,000 with which Abelardo surpasses Cepeda is located,” he continued.
Petro attributed the discovery of the alleged voting table modifications to the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo — which fact-checked Petro and refuted his claims moments after the president’s claims. El Tiempo noted that the European Union, the Organization of American States (OAS), and other international organizations monitored the voting process.
Speaking to El Tiempo, Colombian National Registrar Hernán Penagos clarified that the country only has a single electoral census published on April 30 that features 41,421,973 voters registered. Penagos also emphasized that most voting stations on Sunday featured facial and fingerprint biometric checks so it is “impossible” to add voters outside of the census as Petro claimed.
Despite Petro’s claims, Colombian authorities publicly informed on Tuesday morning that no evidence of massive vote alternation has been found throughout the vote count.
Colombia’s National Civil Registry, which published the official results of Sunday’s election, announced in a statement that electoral judges have counted 99.98 percent of all votes. According to the institution, the results have a 99.94 percent match with those divulged on Sunday.
The National Registry emphasized that the changes have been “minimal” and that the process of consolidating and releasing the results has been successful.
The Registry detailed that, out of the over 122,000 voting tables installed on Sunday, only 33 are left to review as of Tuesday morning due to weather conditions delaying the logistical transport of the voting material.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
Read the full article here