Colombian presidential candidate Juan Manuel Santos of the ruling Social Party of National Unity ("Partido de la U [2]") has won the first round in the May 30 election [3], but will now face a second-round run-off with Green Party [4] candidate Antanas Mockus. Santos has 46.57% of the 14,760,255 votes counted, followed by Mockus with 21.49%. They are followed by Cambio Radical [5] candidate German Vargas Lleras and the Polo Democratico [6]'s Gustavo Petro [3] with about 10% each. The turnout was high, with 49% of eligible voters going to the polls, 4% more than in 2006. (Colombia Reports [7], May 30)
But the website EleccionesTransparantes.com [8], maintained by independent media and the Electoral Observation Mission, documents complaints about vote-buying, fraud, violence and other irregularities at polling places throughout the country. Most complaints concerned the buying of votes for Santos. (Colombia Reports [9], May 30)
See our last post on Colombia [10].
Please leave a tip [11] or answer the Exit Poll [12].
