Barrios: In Colombia there is no possibility of postponing elections 2:26
See here the result of the live voting of the elections in Colombia this May 29.
(CNN Spanish) --
At the end of the day, elections anywhere in the world come down to a number: the number of votes to win.
And the first round of the presidential elections in Colombia, which will take place this Sunday, May 29, is no exception.
There are six candidates for the presidency (two retired), among whom Gustavo Petro and Federico "Fico" Gutiérrez are emerging as favorites.
But even with these favorites, the polls anticipate that it will be difficult for anyone to exceed the threshold of votes necessary to win in the first round, so a second instance would be needed on June 19.
Colombian presidential elections in 2022: where to vote and how to check my position and polling station
How many votes, then, are necessary to have a president on May 29 and avoid a second election day three weeks later?
Who is Gustavo Petro and what is the change he proposes for Colombia?
8:16
How many people are called to vote?
In Colombia there are 39,002,239 people qualified to vote in these elections, according to the National Registry of Civil Status.
This includes 20,111,908 women and 18,890,331 men.
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To win in the first round, according to article 190 of the Colombian Constitution, a candidate must obtain half plus one of the votes.
Calculating the number for victory in the first round is not easy, since it will depend, in this way, on the number of people, among those qualified, who actually vote on May 29.
For example, in the last elections of 2018, when Iván Duque —the current president— won, there were 36,227,267 eligible people, but 19,643,676 people voted in the first round (a turnout of 54.22%).
If this participation is maintained, a candidate would have to reach 10,573,507 votes to win in the first round in 2022.
But in Colombia, where voting is not compulsory, the levels of participation in presidential elections are not stable, and depend on the context of each process.
Federico Gutiérrez aspires to govern Colombia: who is he and what does he propose?
8:09
In 2010, when Juan Manuel Santos won for the first time, participation was 49.29% in the first round and 44.34% in the second.
In 2006 it was 45.05%, and in 2002 it was 46.47%, to cite two other examples, both with victories by Álvaro Uribe Vélez.
This means that the threshold to win on the first round can fluctuate.
How Petro and Gutiérrez arrive
Whatever the final number, the figure of some 10 million votes seems far from the recent performance of Petro and Gutiérrez, who obtained some 4.4 million and 2.1 million votes, respectively, in their party consultations in March.
How many votes did Gustavo Petro, Sergio Fajardo, Federico Gutiérrez and Rodolfo Hernández get in previous elections?
Petro, for his part, has already stood for presidential elections in Colombia.
In his first participation, in 2010, he obtained 1,331,267 votes, while in the second, in 2018, he obtained 4,855,069 in the first round and 8,040,449 in the second.
If indeed no candidate crosses the threshold, there will no longer be numerical limitations in the second round of elections on June 19: the candidate who obtains the most votes in that final contest will win.
Colombian Elections
