Colombia’s presidential race moved into its counting phase at 4:00 p. m., when all polling places closed and the Registraduría began the preconteo. In the third bulletin, Abelardo de la Espriella was shown with 49,65 % and Iván Cepeda with 48,85 %, a difference so narrow that the first count barely had room to breathe.
The balance came as Hernán Penagos thanked polling jurors and said the country had put in place “garantías electorales sin precedentes en Colombia,” calling the day a “fiesta democrática.” That is the frame voters heard just as the numbers started to land, and it mattered because the count was still only beginning.
By the time that third bulletin was released, the preconteo had advanced only to 2.223 of 122.020 mesas, or 1,82 %. That left the lead looking real but provisional, with a slim margin resting on a small slice of the national tally. For readers trying to understand elections in Colombia right now, that is the point: the race was already being read as decisive while most of the country’s vote had not yet been reported.
The day also stretched beyond Colombia’s borders. In Venezuela, polling places had already closed, and the ambassador said no incidents were registered during the day. Inside Colombia, the message from the election authority was one of calm and celebration; the numbers, though, were still too early to turn that mood into certainty.
That is why the next bulletin matters more than the first applause. The Registraduría’s preconteo will keep filling in the picture, and the unresolved question is simple: whether de la Espriella’s early edge survives once the count moves past the first sliver of mesas and into the full national total.
