Regional Elections in Colombia: Winners in Major Cities

The first results of Colombia's regional elections have begun to come out pointing to candidates who have won in the five main cities of the South American country, including its capital, Bogota.

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Polls closed at 16:00 (local time) this Sunday in an electoral process in which almost 39 million voters were called to participate.

As of this moment, the progress of the scrutiny is being followed through the web page of the National Civil Registry. The bulletins issued during this process are informative and are neither binding nor official.

The mayors of the country's 1,102 municipalities were elected today, although the main results are concentrated in the five Colombian cities of Bogota, Medellin, Cali, Barranquilla and Cartagena. 

For the mayoralty of Bogotá, Carlos Fernando Galán, of the opposition party "New Liberalism," was the most voted candidate in the capital. He is in first place (49.01%), with 99.53% of the tables counted, and would avoid a second round.

In Medellín, capital of Antioquia, the right-wing candidate Federico Gutiérrez is positioned as winner with 73.72 % and 84.08 % of the tables reported. 

In Cali, candidate Álvaro Alejandro Éder is in first place with 40.85 % and 84.76 % of the reported tables.

In Barranquilla, Alejandro Char is in first place with 73.57 %, with 71.54 % of the tables reported.

In Cartagena, the capital of Bolivar, Dumek Turbay is in the lead with 42.45 %, with 79.64 % of the tables reported.

Electoral authorities have reported a high abstention rate of around 65 %, while the blank vote was around 10 %, according to preliminary figures. 

This means that 2 out of 3 Colombians did not go to the polls. Only a quarter of the population decided the composition of local governments.