First the victory of Brexit and now the defeat of the Colombian peace deal: The world keeps getting shocked by the outcome of pivotal referenda. So what happened in Colombia?

It’s hard to read too much into the outcome of a vote that was so close (the “no” side won 50.2 percent) and that saw so few voters turn out (only 40 percent). A hurricane on Colombia’s Caribbean coast kept many voters from going to polling stations, so the weather, as much as anything else, might have dictated the outcome.

Beyond this act of God, various other factors have been put forward to explain the victory for the “no” campaign. Among them: The unpopularity of President Juan Manual Santos, the architect of the peace deal. Many saw the vote as a more referendum on him more than on the peace deal itself. Conversely Alvaro Uribe, Santos’s predecessor as president and a staunch opponent of the deal, remains beloved by many Colombians for setting the stage of FARC’s defeat. Many voters appeared to react poorly to the triumphal signing ceremony for the peace deal that Santos staged even before winning voter support. And just as many Brexit voters did not expect to win, so, too, it seems that some opponents of the peace deal were simply registering a protest rather than expecting to scuttle the agreement altogether.

To the extent that the deal’s defeat was on the merits, Colombian voters were expressing disapproval at what was seen as an overly lenient deal–one that will allow FARC’s leaders to avoid jail time for their crimes while guaranteeing them a certain number of seats in congress. Many voters seem to agree with Uribe that a better peace is needed, one that holds the rebels to account for all the misdeeds they have committed over 52 years of war.

The question is what happens now? No one seems to know. Santos has said that the current ceasefire will expire October 31. Does this mean war will resume? Or will there be further negotiations with FARC, and if so what will they achieve?

It seems unlikely that FARC leaders will agree to send themselves to jail–which seems to be the only sort of deal that would be acceptable to Uribe and many of his followers. What Uribe, whose father was killed by the insurgents, seems to want is FARC’s unconditional surrender. But that would only come about if the organization is incapable of or unwilling to resume armed resistance. Perhaps the rebels are so war-weary that they will accede to any terms. But given how hard they negotiated over the past three years, that seems unlikely. FARC, after all, still has thousands of fighters, it still has sanctuaries in Venezuela and, most important of all, it  still has substantial revenue from narcotic trafficking, which has actually increased during the cease-fire. In short, it has the capacity to resume the armed struggle if it so desires.

FARC fighters were supposed to begin assembling in United Nations-supervised camps where they would surrender their arms; it is hard to see how that happening now. It would be a tragedy if a real chance for peace is lost by the narrowest of margins, but it’s also possible that Colombia narrowly avoided the implementation of a deeply flawed accord.

Ultimately that is a choice that Colombians have to make for themselves, just as Israelis have to decide for themselves how to address the security threats that they face. After all, they will have to live with  the consequences of their decisions. We outsiders can only watch and worry from afar.