Presidential election in Colombia 2010

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The 2010 presidential elections in Colombia were held in May and June 2010. The incumbent President Álvaro Uribe did not run for this election because he was not allowed to run for a third term due to the rejection of a constitutional amendment by the Colombian Constitutional Court. In the first ballot on May 30, none of the candidates received more than 50% of the vote. Former defense minister Juan Manuel Santos , who was close to Uribe, and the green politician Antanas Mockus , a former mayor of the capital Bogotá , received the highest percentage of votes and ran a runoff on June 20, in which Santos won with 69.1 percent of the vote.

Starting position

The then President Álvaro Uribe was not allowed to run again.

In the Colombian presidential elections in 2006 , the previous incumbent Álvaro Uribe Vélez was re-elected in the first ballot with 62.2% of the vote, after he had previously been able to push through a constitutional amendment that enabled a second term of office for Colombian presidents. Uribe is thus the first re-elected President of Colombia and tried to strive for a third term in 2010 with a new constitutional amendment. Luis Guillermo Giraldo , the chairman of the pro-Uribe party Partido de la U , announced in 2007 that he would collect signatures with a support committee to hold a referendum on whether Uribe should be allowed to seek a third term in office. In September 2009, the Colombian Congress approved the referendum law in a vote boycotted by members of the opposition. However, the referendum and the intended constitutional amendment were rejected by the Colombian Constitutional Court on February 26, 2010 in a 7-to-2 decision. Thus, only new candidates ran for election on May 30, 2010.

Candidates

Immediately after the court ruling, former Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos confirmed that he would run as a presidential candidate. Another Uribist candidate was Germán Vargas Lleras of the Cambio Radical party , who was previously Colombia's ambassador to Great Britain . Two other close allies of Uribe, Noemí Sanín and the former Minister of Agriculture Andrés Felipe Arias , and Álvaro Leyva Durán , an opponent of Uribe, tried to get a nomination by the Partido Conservador Colombiano , from which Sanín was finally nominated.

From parties of the parliamentary opposition, Rafael Pardo stood for the social democratic Partido Liberal and Gustavo Petro of the Polo Democrático Independiente . On October 2, 2009, the three former mayors of the Colombian capital Bogotá, Enrique Peñalosa , Antanas Mockus and Luis Eduardo Garzón, together with others founded the green Alianza Verde , which sees itself as post-Uribist, and presented themselves to a nomination vote of their party on March 14, 2010 which Antanas Mockus emerged victorious and was nominated as a presidential candidate. Sergio Fajardo , the former mayor of Medellín , joined him on March 5, 2010 as a vice-presidential candidate after failing to meet the requirements for his own candidacy.

  • Juan Manuel Santos

  • Antanas Mockus

  • Noemi Sanín

  • Germán Vargas Lleras

Survey

Development of the survey results of the candidates from March to May 2010 by various institutes

Surveys by various opinion research institutes initially indicated a duel in a second voting round between Juan Manuel Santos and Noemí Sanín, both of whom are in the Uribe tradition. From April 2010, however, the tide turned and the green Antanas Mockus, who was far behind in the previous presidential election in 2006 with 1.24%, caught up in the polls.

Results

First ballot

Juan Manuel Santos won the first ballot by a clear margin over Antanas Mockus, but missed an absolute majority.

Results in detail:

  • Juan Manuel Santos - 46.56%
  • Antanas Mockus - 21.49%
  • Germán Vargas Lleras - 10.13%
  • Gustavo Petro - 9.15%
  • Noemí Sanín - 6.14%
  • Rafael Pardo - 4.38%

Second ballot

The decision about the new President of Colombia was made on June 20, 2010 in a runoff between Juan Manuel Santos and Antanas Mockus, which Santos clearly won. Overall, Santos was able to claim 69.1 percent of the votes. Mockus reached 27.5 percent. The turnout was less than 45 percent. As a result, Juan Manuel Santos became the new President of Colombia on August 7, 2010.

Irregularities and incidents

The election observation commission in Colombia MOE (Misión de Observación Electora) announced in a first report on election day that there had been 51 incidents in the first four hours, including cases of voting in favor of candidate Juan Manuel Santos. However, vote buying took place to a much lesser extent than in the last election in Colombia on March 14th.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Uribe will not run again ( Memento from May 3, 2010 in the Internet Archive ). Angus Reid Global Monitor, March 14, 2010.
  2. ↑ Patrick Markey: Colombia's Uribe blocked from re-election. Reuters , February 26, 2010, accessed February 26, 2010 .
  3. ↑ mherrera.org
  4. ↑ angus-reid.com ( Memento from April 12, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ^ Results of the first ballot according to Bulletin No. 49 of the Election Commission ( memento of June 29, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ), accessed on June 20, 2010.
  6. ↑ Santos gana las presidenciales Colombianas con el 68.9 por ciento de los votos
  7. ^ MOE denuncia compra de votos a favor de Santos en Colombia. In: teleSUR. May 30, 2010; Archived from the original on December 25, 2010 ; Retrieved May 30, 2010 (Spanish).
  8. ↑ ostensible disminución DE REPORTES SOBRE IRREGULARIDADES Electorales. In: Misión de Observación Electora. May 30, 2010, archived from the original on November 3, 2011 ; Retrieved May 30, 2010 (Spanish).
  9. ^ Colombia: ONG recibe denuncias por irregularidades electorales. In: AP. May 30, 2010, Retrieved May 30, 2010 (Spanish).