Analysis: How the Colombian peace deal fell apart
People around the world were stunned when Colombians voted down a peace deal that could have ended a 52-year battle between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC.
As Colombians wondered whether peace negotiations would continue Monday, the reasons behind the accord's collapse became more clear.
From long-held suspicions of the FARC guerrillas to Brexit-style campaigning on social media to meteorological disturbances, it took a confluence of factors to sink the deal that could have ended a battle that has killed nearly a quarter-million Colombians.
The main reservation for Colombian voters was the peace deal was far too lenient on the FARC guerrillas who have been kidnapping, murdering, extorting and terrorizing people in the rural parts of the country for five decades.
In exchange for turning in their guns and profits, FARC guerrillas would mostly evade any time in prison under the deal. Instead, if they admitted to wrongdoing before a criminal tribunal, they would be allowed to serve between five and eight years under "restricted movement" performing social work, such as de-mining war zones or building public infrastructure. They were also in line to receive a state pension and were guaranteed five seats in each chamber of Colombia's Congress for years to come.
"Justice should be like death. It doesn't exclude anybody," said Myriam de Gallardo, a Barranquilla native who cast her "no" vote at the Colombian consulate in Miami on Sunday. "We want peace. But someone who spent their life killing and kidnapping is going to make more money than me? No, no, no."
Colombians reject historic peace deal with rebels
With little organized campaigning ahead of the vote, social media ended up playing a big role in influencing voters. Adam Isacson of the Washington Office on Latin America said he saw a constant flurry of posts on Twitter and other social media sites spreading what he described as "misinformation" about the peace deal.
Some posts said the peace deal was a back door for Cuban-style communism to take over the Colombian government. Some said it would create a Venezuela-like state where narco-traffickers worked hand-in-hand with the government.
Isacson said the amount of inaccuracies that floated through Colombia's cyber space reminded him of the Brexit vote, the June referendum that pulled the United Kingdom out of the European Union.
"Like the Brexit parallel, the social media phenomenon was either untrue, desperately needed fact-checking or was only half-true," said Isacson, who has studied Colombia for 20 years and was in Bogota observing Sunday's vote.
With peace deal defeat, what's next for Colombia?
The lack of a formal campaign from supporters of the peace deal also created an opening for former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, who strongly opposed the peace deal.
Camilo Pérez-Bustillo, a Colombian and executive director of the University of Dayton Human Rights Center, said Santos' "yes" campaign mostly held wonky workshops and conferences in schools and churches around the country.
Uribe, on the other hand, brought out the full weight of his political machinery for the "no" campaign. Pérez-Bustillo said the former president's camp was able to fashion a clear, easy-to-digest message about the dangers of the peace deal while the "yes" campaign could never clearly explain the benefits of the complicated, 297-page accord.
"The headline today should be the resuscitation of (Uribe)," he said. "Now he's suddenly the de-facto man who decides where Colombia's future lies."
The geography of Colombia also played a factor. The people most affected by the war with the rebels live in the countryside, but most Colombians — about 70% — live in major cities.
"This means those most likely to vote are also those least affected by the costs of civil war," said Jason Quinn, an assistant professor who studies peace accords at the University of Notre Dame's Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies.
Even Hurricane Matthew played a factor. The storm, which stalled in the Caribbean Sea as a Category 4 hurricane, drenched the Colombian coastline throughout the weekend, killing one, damaging dozens of houses and flooding many communities. Officials believe there was depressed voter turnout along the coastal states of La Guajira, Magdalena and Atlantico, which all voted almost 2 to 1 in favor of the peace deal.
On Monday, Colombia's chief negotiator Humberto de la Calle, said he accepted responsibility for the mistakes in the accord that ultimately sunk it at the polls. But Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC leaders said they would return to the negotiating table to try and get it right.
"We want peace," de Gallardo said. "We just want a just peace."