Colombia waits to know how the Congress will be formed and how the presidential ballot will look like to vote in April

This Sunday, 38,819,901 Colombians were called to the polls to elect 188 members of the House of Representatives and 108 senators.

The polls opened at 08:00 for people to vote (on a voluntary basis in the country) and closed at 16:00 to begin counting.

This time the conformation of the cameras would have some changes. In total, the number of candidates was 919 for the Senate and 1,487 for the House of Representatives.

One hundred senators are chosen by vote, two are set aside for indigenous people, five for the Comunes Party (formerly FARC) and one for the second-place presidential candidate. While there are 162 representatives of the Chamber, elected by vote in the 32 departments of the country, 16 from the Special Transitory Circumscriptions of Peace, one from abroad, one for indigenous jurisdiction, one for the second vice-presidential candidate, five for the ex-FARC and two for Afro-Colombians.

The seats for Special Transitional Districts of Peace, also called “peace seats”, are provided for in the agreement signed between the Government and the FARC, and cover the 167 municipalities hardest hit by the conflict, distributed in 18 of the 32 Colombian departments.

In most of the territory, voting took place calmly, but complaints were published on social networks by people who claimed that, despite having registered to vote, they were not on the list. In addition to the fact that the website of the Registrar’s Office, used to know the voting points, had flaws, according to the newspaper The viewer.

The candidate Gustavo Petro, who was expected to be elected as the presidential candidate of the Historical Pact (left) in today’s consultation, also caused controversy by posting on his Twitter account that those who were trying to buy their vote should accept the money. and vote for him, being criticized by politicians, candidates and officials for saying that instead of recommending that such cases be reported.

Petro is the first in all voting intention polls for the presidential elections, whose first round will be held on May 29; and the second, on June 19.

Petro was the last of the favorites in the consultations to vote, after Federico Gutiérrez, from Equipo por Colombia, who exercised his right to vote in Medellín, as well as Sergio Fajardo, from the Centro Esperanza Coalition, who also did so in that city. , capital of Antioch.

Vote in the hardest hit Colombia

At the polling station in San Antonio, a jungle area in northwestern Colombia, a score of neighbors wait, chatting happily, for their turn to vote in front of two heavily armed soldiers. This town in the department of Chocó is one of those that, for the first time in history, chooses the victims who will be their voice in Congress, he says. EFE.

It is a small post, on the banks of the San Juan River, where many people have come to vote first thing in the morning and where the Registrar’s Office has had to set up an extra table, since more people than usual have registered to vote in this small town. , where there are less than 400 voters.

Contrary to what happens with most villages, where you can vote for the so-called “peace seats”, San Antonio is only a few kilometers from Istmina, on a paved road and easily accessible. Access to most of the 114 polling stations in the jungle department of Chocó is only by river or sea.

For Blasney Mosquera, one of the Chocó candidates for the “peace seats”, this is a very important vote, because “we need the laws to strengthen the victims of the territory, because we are the most unprotected by the whole barrage that is being presented”. (I)