Colombia votes in presidential runoff election

Colombian voters headed to the polls Sunday for a presidential runoff election, choosing between far-right candidate Abelardo de la Espriella and leftist Iván Cepeda.

Polling stations closed at 4 p.m. local time after eight hours of voting. The National Registry, which oversees the elections, anticipated releasing consolidated preliminary results before 6 p.m. Hernán Penagos, the national registrar, highlighted the meticulous vote-counting process, with over 350,000 witnesses from both campaigns present at 122,000 polling stations to verify the tallies.

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In this moment they are counting the votes and filling out each of the electoral records by hand in the presence of more than 350,000 witnesses from the two political campaigns who will be able to verify the result at each of the 122,000 polling stations.

Election officials reported that the voting proceeded normally, without any incidents of violence. Authorities urged citizens to respect the outcome. Earlier in the day, President Gustavo Petro encouraged Colombians to vote despite any obstacles, emphasizing that he would only recognize results validated by the judiciary, not preliminary counts. "I will obey the judges as the law and Constitution dictate. Everything before the judges' decision is information, but what is binding is the judge's ruling," Petro stated.

Pre-election polls indicated De la Espriella, founder of the Defensores de la Patria movement and the frontrunner in the first round with support from Donald Trump, ahead of Cepeda, who represents the Pacto Histórico party, the same party as Petro.

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I will obey the judges as the law and Constitution dictate. Everything before the judges' decision is information, but what is binding is the judge's ruling.