Colombians vote against peace pact with rebels

BOGOTA— Voters rejected a peace deal with leftist rebels by a razor-thin margin in a national referendum Sunday, delivering a major setback to President Juan Manuel Santos, who vowed to keep a ceasefire in place and not give up his campaign to end a half-century of war.

With more than 99 per cent of polling stations reporting, 50.2 per cent of ballots opposed the accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia while just 49.8 per cent favoured it — a difference of less than 57,000 votes out of a total of 13 million.

“I won’t give up. I’ll continue search for peace until the last moment of my mandate,” Santos said in a televised address recognizing his defeat.

He ordered his negotiators to return to Cuba on Monday to consult with FARC leaders who were awaiting results on the communist island. He also promised to listen to opponents in a bid to save — and strengthen — the deal, which he said is Colombia’s best chance for ending a conflict that has killed 220,000 people and driven almost 8 million people from their homes.

The shock outcome opens an uncertain outlook for the peace accord that was signed days ago by Santos and the FARC in a ceremony attended by heads of state, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

Opposition to the accord, led by former President Alvaro Uribe, argued that the government was appeasing the FARC and setting a bad example that criminal gangs would seize on. If the “no” vote prevailed, Uribe said, the government should return to the negotiating table. But that is an option Santos has previously ruled out.

“The FARC deeply regret that the destructive power of those who sow hatred and revenge have influenced the Colombian people’s opinion,” one of the FARC leaders, also known as Timochenko, told reporters later.

A few states where the “yes” vote was winning by a wide margin were still counting ballots, but as the hours passed, chances of reversing the result faded. Pre-election polls had pointed to the “yes” vote winning by an almost two-to-one margin.