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With a narrow margin of 250,830 votes (barely 0.96%), the Registrar\u2019s Office\u2019s preliminary count has declared far-right candidate Abelardo de la Espriella the winner over Iv\u00e1n Cepeda in the runoff election. The thousands of challenges, stemming from allegations of irregularities and fraud, call into question the legitimacy of any eventual confirmation of De La Espriella as president-elect. Since the very night of June 21, the mobilizations and demonstrations outside the polling stations have asserted the legitimate right to resolve these allegations.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The vote for Iv\u00e1n and A\u00edda alone\u2014which exceeded Gustavo Petro\u2019s second-round total by one million votes, marking the highest ever obtained by the \u201cleft\u201d in Colombia\u2019s history\u2014 and especially the protests that began sweeping the country almost immediately, show that the masses have not been defeated and that the new consciousness of struggle that emerged from the National Strikes of 2019 and 2021 remains alive. The electoral map of the country and its cities reveals a vote divided along class lines. While the most impoverished working-class and popular sectors, as well as residents of the regions most affected by violence and inequality\u2014such as Choc\u00f3\u2014voted overwhelmingly for Cepeda, those who hold the wealth\u2014and those who aspire to be rich\u2014led the fervent vote for the far right. This map presents a distorted picture of the real class struggle, which must now translate into organization and struggle in defense of rights and against the authoritarian threat. There is also a clear generational divide: young people overwhelmingly support the most left-wing option, the defense of nature, and democratic rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Regardless of the extent to which any potential fraud may have influenced the outcome, the rise of the right in the country is a fact, just as it has been in other countries in Latin America and around the world. The new international right\u2014embodied by Milei, Bukele, Bolsonaro, and Trump\u2014is advancing globally by capitalizing on the discontent of the middle classes and the petty bourgeoisie over the mistakes, limitations, and contradictions of neo-reformist and progressive left-wing governments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n De la Espriella is already threatening to use force to suppress any hint of resistance against his potential government, revealing his authoritarian disposition that belies all the deceitful rhetoric about recognizing differences and \u201cgoverning for everyone\u201d that he espoused in his speech following the preliminary count.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For their part, Cepeda and Petro\u2014who, while echoing the complaints and waiting for the final vote count to recognize any election result, also call for calm and urge people to protect their votes\u2014are pouring cold water on the just indignation expressed in the demonstrations; they even explicitly advise against mobilizing and urge people to trust the work of judges, lawyers, and notaries. We, on the other hand, believe that the vote-counting and challenge process must be accompanied by mobilization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Registrar\u2019s Office is rushing to complete the vote count in order to proclaim De La Espriella as president. They want to avoid uncertainty like that seen in Peru. They will surely rush through the resolution of all complaints. We defend the democratic right to demand transparency in the vote counts and the resolution of all challenges. We stand with and support the mobilization of youth and the masses in this struggle, but we are skeptical about the outcome, since most forms of fraud cannot be detected through the review of polling stations and forms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fraud goes beyond the problem with the software and the reported tampering with forms and ballots. The bourgeois electoral system is a fraud in and of itself, designed to prevent small and radical organizations like the PST from participating\u2014an electoral system that does not even guarantee the existence of polling stations in the most remote communities. The election campaign itself was a fraud: riddled with false and distorted information\u2014spread both on social media and in the mass media\u2014clientelism, vote-buying\u2014which is impossible to detect once the votes have been cast\u2014 electoral coercion, and above all, Trump\u2019s imperialist intervention in the elections, which was not limited to publicly supporting De la Espriella but also included intimidating and even persecuting Cepeda\u2019s campaign: activist Beto Coral, of the Historic Pact, was arbitrarily detained in the United States on the orders of Marco Rubio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The same mechanism as \u201cHonduras-gate\u201d was at work in Colombia\u2019s presidential elections; that is, a plan hatched between the local right wing and imperialism to manipulate public opinion, interfere in our internal affairs, and use political repression to maintain control. Naturally, U.S. imperialism wasted no time in recognizing and proclaiming De la Espriella as president before the Colombian authorities did, and in his first video after the preliminary count, the very first thing De la Espriella said was that he would move forward hand in hand with the United States; the \u201chomeland\u201d was obviously nothing more than a demagogic slogan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That is why the people are right: even if De la Espriella is proclaimed president in the coming hours or days, his election may be legal but it will not be legitimate, and it is entirely justified to take to the streets to fight and denounce it starting now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A new chapter in the class struggle in Colombia is beginning, marked by political polarization in which the new government\u2014strengthened by Trump\u2019s imperialist interference and by having united under the banners of a new international far right\u2014will not have an easy time imposing its economic and political war, and likely an escalation of violence, against the working class and the popular sectors. Now it will face the real struggle: the class struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Bolivian masses, the education struggles in Chile, and the workers\u2019 struggles in Argentina against right-wing governments on the continent continue to show the way. As the struggle against fascism in the 1930s demonstrated, one does not negotiate with the far right; one combats it through organization and independent struggle, promoting the broadest possible unity in action\u2014far from the paralyzing alliances with the government and the absurdity of now calling for a National Agreement with those who, without even having been ratified, are already threatening us; on the contrary, no truce for Abelardo and his henchmen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That is why it is urgent to call for an emergency national meeting where trade unions, indigenous organizations, and social movements can organize, centralize, and coordinate the current mobilizations in the wake of the vote count, and in preparation for the coming weeks and months. We call on the labor federations, led by the CUT, to convene this meeting as soon as possible. This emergency national meeting must be supported by the popular and sectoral assemblies that sprang up across the country after the first round of voting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\nThe people have not been defeated<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
It is time to move from the ballot box to the streets<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Fraud is a reality, but it goes far beyond the Registrar\u2019s Office<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
National Emergency Meeting to Define a Plan of Action<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n