“The scrutiny, which is already very advanced, is confirming the results of the pre-count (…) The results system, based on manually processed records, offered traceability, safeguarding and rapid digital publication“. This is the forceful report from the European Union Electoral Observation Mission (EU-EOM), which deployed nearly 150 observers throughout the country, on the transparency of the Colombian electoral system.
“With all due respect to the President (Gustavo Petro), who has met with the Mission on two occasions, and has facilitated everything necessary for the Mission with the members of his government, No candidate or candidacy has indicated to us that there are any types of irregularities.. The President makes a complaint, but what we are talking about is the candidates and up to this point no one has reported any irregularity,” said the head of the Mission and also vice president of the European Parliament. Esteban González Pons.
José Antonio de Gabriel, Esteban González and Leire Pajín. Photo:Paula Rodríguez EL TIEMPO.
The head of the EU-EOM Mission assured that the election day was peaceful, orderly and transparent, with no relevant incidents. But, also, with the effective presence of witnesses from the different candidates.
“The observers rated all the phases as – I use the adjectives that were most frequently used in the questionnaires – orderly, transparent and fluid,” said the Spaniard.
This conclusion of the international organization, which has deployed more than 200 Electoral Observation Missions in more than 75 countries, leaves no ground to the claims of President Gustavo Petro, who since Sunday night insists that the electoral roll was supposedly manipulated in favor of Abelardo de la Espriella, who took almost 700,000 votes from the second, Iván Cepeda.
Esteban González, head of the EU-EOM Mission. Photo:EOM-EU.
In turn, Leire Pajín, head of the European Parliament delegation of the EU Observation Mission, pointed out that the campaign took place in the midst of a climate of polarization “with serious accusations being exchanged between the candidates, with improper participation in the campaign of the President of the Republic and also of other public officials, as well as external interference by the President of Ecuador.”
Voting in Corferias. Photo:@MiltonDiazfoto / El Tiempo
Alerts about improper participation in politics
The EOM of the European Union reported serious indications of misuse of public resources for electoral purposes. Among its findings, the systematic promotion of the Government’s achievements during the presidential campaign stood out.
As an example, he pointed out that ministries and state entities repeatedly disseminated messages about the management of the administration, including content identified with the hashtag #100LogrosDePetro. “This practice contravenes Colombian legislation and international conventions on electoral matters,” the report states. According to the monitoring carried out, On average, one in three messages published by the main ministries highlighted the Government’s achievements.
The report also includes questions about the participation of President Gustavo Petro in the electoral debate. Sectors of the opposition denounced an alleged improper intervention by the president in the campaign, while the EU-EOM recorded that the head of state repeatedly requested the delivery of the source code of the electoral software, an action interpreted as a form of institutional pressure.
In this sense, the EU-EOM also collected complaints of misuse of public resources during electoral times that would have materialized in the allocation of land by the Government, the inauguration of educational infrastructure, the announcement of scholarships and the use of official platforms during the campaign period.
In terms of media coverage, the EOM observed that The public media, particularly Signal Colombia and Radio Nacional, maintained an informative line predominantly favorable to the president, the Government and the candidate Iván Cepeda. In contrast, the candidates Abelardo de la Espriella and Paloma Valencia had a lesser presence in these spaces and were frequently subject to unfavorable coverage.
Added to this, according to the report, was a significant increase in the dissemination of institutional advertisements that extolled the administration’s achievements, the frequency of which doubled during the final weeks of the campaign.
For its part, the EU EOM points out that private media dedicated less space to the Government and, when they did, it was often in a critical tone. According to monitoring, these media gave priority to the three main candidates—Valencia, Cepeda and De la Espriella—, with similar exposure times and mostly neutral coverage.
Disinformation, hate messages and social networks
Pajín added that the campaign was conditioned by misinformation, mainly through social networks, a phenomenon that intensified in recent days. “It allowed attacks of extreme cruelty against the candidates,” he said.
The EU-EOM monitoring unit detected that 4 out of every 100 responses to the candidates’ posts contained hate messages. It also shows that all the candidates were the target of sexist messages: Paloma Valencia received the most attacks, followed by Claudia López and Aida Quilcué.
Likewise, Quilcué received racist attacks; while Juan Daniel Oviedo and Claudia López were the subject of homophobic comments.
This is how the EU-EOM observation was deployed
During election day, the EU-EOM deployed 143 observers from 24 EU countries, plus Norway, Switzerland and Canada, who covered 591 tables throughout the country.
The EU-EOM added that they hope that the second round will also take place in a peaceful, democratic manner and with full respect for the sovereignty of Colombia and the will of the citizens.
The Mission will remain in the country to observe the second round and, two months after concluding the process, will present a final report with recommendations for future electoral processes.
PAULA VALENTINA RODRÍGUEZ AND JUAN PABLO PENAGOS RAMÍREZ
Political Writing
