1986 Colombian presidential election

1986 Colombian presidential election
	Winner by department
President before election; Belisario Betancur; Conservative	Elected President ; Virgilio Barco Vargas; Liberal

Presidential elections were held in Colombia on 25 May 1986.^[1] The result was a victory for Virgilio Barco Vargas of the Liberal Party, who received 58.36% of the vote.

Electoral system

The elections were held using first-past-the-post voting and were the first in which the electoral commission counted blank votes as valid votes.^[2]


Candidate		Party	Votes	%
	Virgilio Barco Vargas	Colombian Liberal Party	4,214,510	58.36
	Álvaro Gómez Hurtado	Conservative Party–National Participation Movement	2,588,050	35.84
	Jaime Pardo Leal	Patriotic Union	328,752	4.55
	Regina Betancur de Liska	Metapolitical Unitary Movement	46,811	0.65
	Juan David Pérez Gaviria	Humanist Party	229	0.00
Write-ins			1,261	0.02
Blank votes			42,205	0.58
Total			7,221,818	100.00

Valid votes			7,221,818	99.89
Invalid votes			8,119	0.11
Total votes			7,229,937	100.00
Registered voters/turnout			15,839,754	45.64
Source: Nohlen

^ Dieter Nohlen (2005) Elections in the Americas: A data handbook, Volume II, p305 ISBN 978-0-19-928358-3
^ Nohlen, p354