The candidates of the legislative elections and the Colombian presidential elections this Saturday burned their last cartridges in search of votes with the delivery of flyers in the streets of the main cities and messages on social networks.
With chants of “president, president” supporters greeted Alejandro Gaviria, one of the presidential hopefuls of the Centro Esperanza Coalition, who on the eve of tomorrow’s elections was in a Bogotá shopping center distributing posters with his wife, Carolina Soto.
Gaviria was accompanied by about twenty supporters who cheered and encouraged him, and the candidate approached some vehicles to talk with those who were passing by, to try to gain their support.
In the case of Juan Manuel Galán, a candidate for the same coalition, his mission on the street ran into an unforeseen event when a woman threw an egg at his entourage, which hit him and his white shirt.
He himself told it on social networks, where he specified that the incident occurred while he was in a square in Bogotá. “People are angry and we have to work to regain trust and credibility in politics,” he defended in a video.
“The feelings of anger and mistrust are legitimate and it is up to us politicians to understand and channel them,” added Galán, later sending “a hug” to the woman who threw the egg at him.
Other candidates, such as the favorite to win the consultation of the leftist Historical Pact, Gustavo Petro, or the one who leads the polls in Equipo por Colombia (right-wing), Federico Gutiérrez, decided to use their social networks to launch an electoral message.
“Tomorrow I vote, I make a pact, I vote a pact,” Petro wrote on his Twitter account, along with a video in which he asked for the vote for the candidates for Congress of his coalition and for him in the presidential consultation.
attention to legislative
This Sunday, Colombians will vote to elect the new members of the Senate and the House of Representatives, as well as the 16 peace seats, destined for victims of the armed conflict, and they will also choose the presidential candidates of three coalitions of center, left and right.
However, the campaign of the pre-candidates of the coalitions has left in the background that of the candidates for the Senate and the House, despite the fact that the composition of the Legislative will be crucial for the governability of the president who is elected in the middle of the year.
“We are going to do it for the country and we are going to do it, above all, for the people who need us the most. We are going to win!” was the message chosen by Gutiérrez, one of the five candidates of the Team for Colombia coalition, from the right.
Social networks have also been the preferred platform for candidates for the Senate and the House, who have flooded Twitter, Instagram or Facebook with political messages in a last attempt to play their cards.
There will be 110,758 tables
For these elections, more than 38.8 million Colombians are called to vote and the National Registry, in charge of organizing them, has installed 12,262 stations and 110,758 polling stations in Colombia, along with another 250 stations and 1,251 polling stations abroad.
The day will feature more than 240,000 security forces agents throughout the country to ensure its normal development, while more than 180 observers from 35 countries will monitor the elections from different missions.
All this under the concern for the operation of the innovative mechanism of “peace seats”, which are 16 seats in the House of Representatives for victims of the armed conflict, which will be chosen from their own lists.
The candidates for the “peace seats” have denounced both difficulties in financing their campaigns and a lack of security and guarantees in those places where violence has increased in recent months.
In addition, it has been questioned that people who are not real victims have been allowed access to these seats or that the traditional parties have taken over the process to place their candidates.
On the other hand, the Colombian Prosecutor’s Office reported this Saturday that together with the National Police it will have a Unified Command Post (PMU) that will receive complaints of possible irregularities or crimes against the electoral process, such as the usual vote buying.
The Colombian president, Iván Duque, also appealed for electoral transparency, indicating that these elections “validate a desire, that democracy continues to be the mechanism par excellence to process our differences, reach consensus and quench polarization.” (I)
Source: Eluniverso
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