The atypical elections in Urrao, Antioquia, were held normally: Registrar's Office

This Sunday, April 3, in the municipality of Urrao, Antioquia, a day of atypical elections was held from 8:00 in the morning. Citizens have defined for the third time, since 2019, who will be the new local president.

The National Registry of Civil Status arranged nine polling stations, four in the municipal seat and the other five in municipalities, and 55 polling stations for the conduct of this election day. The entity also indicated that a total of 24,805 citizens, of whom 12,240 are women and 12,565 are men, were authorized to exercise their right to vote in these atypical elections.

On this occasion there were five candidates seeking election as mayors of the municipality: Sebastián Durango, from the Democratic Center; Osvaldo Sepúlveda, of the Conservative Party; Sergio Augusto Cardona of Humana Colombia; Jaime Eduardo Urrego of the Indigenous Authorities of Colombia; and Alvaro Salazar Herrera of the Coalition for the Great Alliance for Urrao unit.

Through its social networks, the Registrar's Office commented that the polls opened at 8:00 in the morning with total normality and under strict biosafety protocols to avoid the spread of covid-19.

“At 4:00 in the afternoon the elections were closed in the municipality of Urrao, with a very positive result,” explained Diego Sepúlveda, departmental delegate of Antioquia. The men and women eligible to vote did so in complete calm with the accompaniment of the security forces, the supervisory bodies and the observation of the EOM (Electoral Observation Mission).”

For his part, the national registrar, Alexander Vega Rocha, assured that: “The democratic day passed completely normally and citizens arrived with peace of mind to the polls. All the tables scheduled for this day were set up and the voting juries attended and no incidents were reported.”

The reasons behind atypical choices

Since 2019, this is the third time that the citizens of Urrao have gone to the polls to elect a mayor. The situation began after the president-elect, Jhon Jairo Higuita Rueda, died on December 16, 2020 from covid-19.

Higuita had been hospitalized in Rionegro since the end of November, but lost the battle in the ICU before the start of the so-called second peak of the pandemic. Earlier, another official elected by popular vote, the mayor of Tarazá, Antioquia, Miguel Ángel Gomez, had died for the same cause.

For this reason, an atypical election day was held on February 21, 2021, in which Alexandra Machado Montoya, wife of the late mayor, was elected; however, the election was annulled six months later by the Administrative Court of Antioquia.

The court's decision was based just on this last detail. The Fifth Chamber argued that “whoever within the previous 12 months has had a marriage bond with anyone who, during the same period, held such authority in the same municipality cannot be elected as mayor.”

Machado Montoya was representing the coalition between the Green Alliance and the Alternative Indigenous and Social Movement (MAIS), known as 'Let Urrao Remain a Field for All'.

The court annulled the ballot and urged the authorities and the Registrar to prepare a new election day. The Government of Antioquia defined that the elections would be held on March 3.

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