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An Indigenous Misak woman waits for her ballot to vote at a polling station during legislative elections in Silvia, Cauca department, Colombia [AFP]<\/p>\nOn Sunday, Colombians will choose from more than 3,000 candidates looking to secure 102 Senate seats and 182 House seats.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Colombians have headed to the polls to elect a new Congress and choose new presidential candidates on Sunday as the country remains on high alert for political violence, with rural regions dominated by armed groups and with the nation facing ongoing pressure from the administration of United States President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
About 41.2 million eligible voters in Colombia will choose from more than 3,000 candidates vying for 102 Senate seats and 182 House seats.<\/p>\n
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Alongside the congressional vote, Colombians will be deciding on presidential candidates for the country\u2019s three key political blocs: the left, centre-left, and the right.<\/p>\n
The winners of the vote will go on to stand during the presidential election, whose first round is set for May 31. However, leading candidates, including leftist Ivan Cepeda, right-winger Abelarda de la Espriella and centrist Sergio Fajardo, will not be participating during the primary elections.<\/p>\n
For Federico Rodriguez, a 32-year-old business administrator, after voting in the capital, Bogota said that it was \u201cvery important\u201d to vote.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe most important thing is for Colombia to decide its future and for the results to be respected,\u201d Rodriguez told the Reuters news agency.<\/p>\n
An Indigenous Misak woman waits for her ballot to vote at a polling station during legislative elections in Silvia, Cauca department, Colombia [AFP]<\/p>\n
Before the polls opened at 8am local time (13:00 GMT) and were expected to close at 4pm (21:00 GMT), Defence Minister Pedro Sanchez claimed that a group of at least 2,400 people \u201callegedly heading to vote\u201d were detected trying to enter the country via an illegal border crossing with Venezuela, despite the announced border closures during the election process.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are doing so illegally,\u201d said Sanchez, adding that \u201cThis is a clear case of a crime being committed.\u201d<\/p>\n
President Gustavo Petro also described the incident as \u201clarge-scale fraud\u201d and an \u201cavalanche of illegal voting\u201d, as he called on the mayor of Cucuta to take action.<\/p>\n
\u201cSixty buses have been detained, and the company responsible for bringing massive numbers of voters from across the border must be investigated immediately,\u201d Petro wrote on X.<\/p>\n
Moreover, more than 126,00 law enforcement officers are expected to be deployed across the country during election day.<\/p>\n
But Petro, whose term as the country\u2019s first left-leaning leader ends in August, has questioned the election software being used and pointed to the 2022 legislative elections when his party, Historic Pact, gained over 390,000 votes following a recount.<\/p>\n
Still, Sunday\u2019s vote is expected to lay the groundwork for the next president, as under Petro\u2019s government, Congress\u2019s decision did not align with the president\u2019s policies, a marked change when the legislature tended to be more aligned.<\/p>\n
Petro\u2019s tribulations with Trump<\/p>\n
After a vitriolic war of words between the two leaders, Trump invited Petro<\/a> to the White House last month.<\/p>\n Both leaders hailed the meeting as productive, while acknowledging the lingering tensions that divide them.<\/p>\n Trump had previously called the Colombian leader a \u201csick man\u201d and an \u201cillegal drug leader\u201d, as he blamed the country for funnelling drugs into the US.<\/p>\n The leaders began their feud<\/a> by\u00a0trading threats on social media over the fate of US deportation flights, a key part of Trump\u2019s immigration crackdown.<\/p>\n Petro objected to the reported human rights violations facing the deportees. Trump, meanwhile, took Petro\u2019s initial refusal to accept the flights as a threat to US \u201cnational security\u201d. Petro ultimately backed down after Trump threatened steep sanctions on imported Colombian goods.<\/p>\n They continued to trade barbs thereafter. Petro condemned the deadly US attacks<\/a> on boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, comparing the strikes with murder.<\/p>\n He has also criticised Trump for carrying out a US military offensive in Venezuela to abduct then-President Nicolas Maduro. That attack, Petro said, was tantamount to \u201ckidnapping\u201d.<\/p>\n Petro is constitutionally banned from seeking a second term as president. Whoever leads Colombia will have to contend with Trump and his focus on South and Central America, saying Cuba is ripe to fall as he applies intense economic pressure, while pursuing the war on Iran<\/a> with Israel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Sunday, Colombians will choose from more than 3,000 candidates looking to secure 102 Senate seats and 182…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":511844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,27459,1070,3140,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-511843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-colombia","tag-elections","tag-latin-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=511843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/511844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}