Outgoing Marxist President of Colombia Gustavo Petro on Sunday claimed that Israel allegedly “compromised” the software used in Sunday’s presidential runoff election, which resulted in the victory of outsider conservative Abelardo de la Espriella.
Petro, who has not presented evidence of his accusations at press time, claimed Israel is “the only country with the capacity to do this in the world.” The Colombian president has not publicly recognized the results of Sunday’s runoff election as of Monday morning.
According to preliminary results published by Colombia’s National Civil Registry, de la Espriella became the next president-elect of Colombia after he obtained 49.66 percent of the votes cast on Sunday, defeating the ruling far-left Historic Pact coalition’s candidate, Senator Iván Cepeda, who obtained 48.70 percent of the votes. President-elect de la Espriella is set to take office when Petro’s term ends on August 7, 2026.
On Sunday evening, while Colombia’s National Civil Registry was in the process of publishing the first sets of public updates of the preliminary vote count, Petro published a two-part social media rant in which he claimed that “no one can be proclaimed president” despite the results of the preliminary vote count indicating that de la Espriella won.
Petro argued that it is only the final scrutiny process that determines the winner of the election and that he will only obey the electoral judges’ final ruling on the matter.
The outgoing president issued his accusations of “vote tampering” against Israel in a follow-up post in which he claimed to be in possession of “evidence” of alleged “change of IP addresses of several servers belonging to the National Registry.”
“This means that the software was compromised and others entered data regarding polling stations and voting booths,” Petro’s message read in part.
“The only entity in the world capable of doing that is the State of Israel,” he continued.
President Petro has publicly questioned Thomas Greg & Sons, the private security company that administered the 2026 presidential election process, starting with the results of the May 31 presidential first round. The company has an over six-decade-long track record in Colombia and has provided passport and ballot printing services to the South American nation, among other services.
Petro claimed that he will provide judges with a “precise list” of the alleged server tampering so that the voting software can be audited. Furthermore, the outgoing President requested a full recount of all votes at all polling stations alongside an investigation into “vulnerabilities in the election software and the polling stations that were affected.”
“I ask the entire population to remain calm and exercise restraint so that a thorough and proper recount can be carried out, one that reflects the true will of the people,” Petro said.
“I maintain that, before allowing ourselves to be overcome by hatred, it is time to seek a national dialogue among the major political factions that divide Colombian society in half, regardless of the actual outcome of the recount,” he continued.
The government of Israel has not publicly commented on Petro’s claims at press time. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has joined the list of foreign heads of state who have publicly congratulated President-elect de la Espriella on his victory. In a brief social media post, Netanyahu wrote that he looks forward to working with de la Espriella to strengthen the bond between Israel and Colombia.
Colombia and Israel originally established diplomatic relations in 1957. Both nations maintained deep, friendly ties for nearly seven decades until President Petro, in the aftermath of Hamas’ October 7, 2023, terrorist attack, broke down the relationship. Petro had Colombia unilaterally cut ties with Israel in May 2024. Petro has since maintained a hostile attitude towards Israel, issuing a barrage of wild accusations against the Middle Eastern nation as recently as this month.
President-elect de la Espriella vowed to restore Colombia’s diplomatic relations with Israel and move its embassy to Jerusalem.
Similarly to Prime Minister Netanyahu, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar congratulated the Colombian president-elect on social media. Sa’ar, in two separate posts written in Spanish and Hebrew, said that he is looking forward to working with de la Espriella to revitalize ties between Israel and Colombia and take them “to their highest levels ever.” Sa’ar said that he invited de la Espriella to visit Israel and he hopes to welcome him into Jerusalem soon.
Despite Petro’s claims that he will wait for the results of the final count to determine who won in Sunday’s runoff election, the Colombian newspaper El Colombiano pointed out that there is no precedent in Colombian electoral history in which the results of the pre-count process have ended up differing from the final results beyond a minimal, 0.1 percent difference in the 1998 presidential election. Similarly, the Colombian electoral system has been praised by international politicians as “world-class” over its robust integrity, security measures, and ability to deliver vote count results in a timely manner.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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