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IN COLOMBIA, THE FIGHT IS STILL ON  
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Pablo Castaño
June 2, 2026
Jacobin
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_ Far-right Abelardo de la Espriella topped the first round of
Colombia’s presidential election. Left-wing senator Iván Cepeda is
still in the race but now has to find support outside the ruling
party’s core vote. _

Colombia’s presidential election is set for a showdown between the
Left and a far-right admirer of Trump, Milei, and Bukele. The risk is
that the US government will interfere to ensure its favored candidate
wins. , Luis Acosta and Raul Arboleda / AFP via Getty Images

 

The far right versus a transformative left. It’s the contest that
Colombia will face in the presidential runoff on June 21, and a
showdown which, with various twists, we’ve already seen in countries
like Brazil, Argentina, and Chile. In the first round, it was
far-right Abelardo de la Espriella — an admirer of Donald Trump,
Argentina’s Javier Milei, and El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele — who
came in first place, with 43.7 percent of the vote. Hot on his heels
is Senator Iván Cepeda of the Pacto Histórico, the left-wing
alliance led until now by President Gustavo Petro, with 40.9 percent.

This first result was a disappointment for the Left, since polls had
predicted Cepeda would come in first place. His campaign had even
hoped to surpass 50 percent, which would have made him president in
the first round, with indigenous leader Aida Quilcué as vice
president. After the cold shower he got this past Sunday, all options
remain open for June 21. The only sure bet is that the Colombian
presidency will be decided by a handful of votes.

The Far Right Devours Traditional Conservatism

The big surprise of the May 31 vote was Abelardo de la Espriella’s
performance. He managed to attract a large share of the traditional
electorate of Uribismo, the tendency led by 2002–2010 president
Álvaro Uribe that has dominated Colombia’s right since the turn of
the century. Proof of this shift was the meager result for
Uribe-backed candidate Paloma Valencia, who, having initially hoped to
make the runoff, ended up with just 6.9 percent support. Both she and
her mentor rushed on Sunday to endorse De la Espriella, but not all
their voters will follow them in the runoff.

In an attempt to appeal to the center, Valencia moderated her
positions during the campaign and chose Juan Daniel Oviedo — a
centrist, openly gay politician — as her vice-presidential
candidate. As elsewhere, radicalizing right-wing voters preferred De
la Espriella’s harsh language and disruptive proposals — he
promises to import Milei’s neoliberal “chainsaw” and Bukele’s
mega-prisons to Colombia — over her balancing act.

Another new development in the first round was increased turnout,
which reached 58 percent — very high by Colombian standards. The
intensity of the campaign certainly contributed. Although the concept
of “polarization” is sometimes used in contexts where all that
really exists is a right-wing radicalization, in the Colombian case it
makes sense: never before have candidates with such opposing political
projects faced off in a runoff. While Cepeda has called De la
Espriella “sexist, homophobic” and a representative “of Mafia
fascism,” the far-right candidate labeled the Petro-backed senator a
“criminal” and “FARC’s heir,” with reference to the Fuerzas
Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, the far-left armed insurgency
that gripped the country for much of the last six decades.

The geographical distribution
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is similar to previous elections: the Right dominates the center of
the country while the Left is stronger in the peripheries, including
the poor Atlantic coast and most areas of Amazonia. However, the far
right triumphed in localities
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with the highest “risk of control” by illegal armed groups, which
have grown in recent years despite the Petro government’s attempts
to negotiate with them to lay down their arms. A decade after the
signing of the peace agreement between the state and FARC, the growth
of other guerrilla groups, criminal organizations and paramilitaries,
totalling some twenty-seven thousand combatants
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nationwide, has reinforced the appeal of De la Espriella’s
militaristic rhetoric. He has promised to “take out” (kill) and
“eliminate” criminals, and appears at his rallies wearing a
bulletproof vest and enclosed in a bulletproof glass box.

 
 
The Left’s Strengths and Challenges

Despite Sunday’s disappointment, the Left can still win the
presidency. One of Cepeda’s strong suits is the strength of his
Pacto Histórico, which has evolved since 2022 from a coalition to a
united political party. That unity already paid off in March’s
legislative elections, in which the Pact consolidated itself as the
country’s leading parliamentary force, improving on its 2022
results, even though it fell far short of an absolute majority.

Cepeda also has in his favor the majority support Petro has earned in
the final stretch of his term, after a tempestuous presidency marked
by ambitious social and environmental reform projects but also by
fierce opposition
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from Colombia’s political, economic, and media establishment. The
first leftist government in the Andean nation’s history has managed
to pass major reforms in areas like taxation, pensions, and higher
education. It has also made Colombia the first country in the world to
halt the expansion
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of the oil industry, despite the importance of this sector to its
exports. After four years of left-wing governance, more land than ever
has been distributed to landless peasants, the minimum wage has risen,
and poverty, hunger, and unemployment have decreased.

On the other hand, other important reforms, such as the attempt to
reduce private insurers’ role in the delivery of health care, have
been blocked in parliament. The “total peace” policy has failed,
despite an initially hopeful process with the Ejército de Liberación
Nacional (ELN) guerrillas. It’s an overall positive balance for the
lives of Colombians — especially poorer ones — which Cepeda has
been able to tout during the campaign. As in 2022, the left-right
divide in the vote has a strong class alignment, with lower-income
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supportive of the Pacto Histórico than richer ones.

It is less clear whether Cepeda’s victory is helped by Petro’s
belligerence during the campaign. On Sunday night, Petro called into
question the provisional tally presented by electoral authorities. On
occasions like this, the impulsive Petro seems to drag Cepeda —
less charismatic, but much more measured and reflective — into a
confrontational style in which the senator, known for his defense of
victims of political violence and for pushing a judicial process
against Uribe over his ties to paramilitaries, is less comfortable.
While Petro has long been stigmatized for his guerrilla record, Cepeda
enjoys an ethical image that contrasts with the aggressiveness and
dark past of Abelardo de la Espriella, who served as a defense
attorney for some of the country’s most bloodthirsty paramilitary
chiefs, including Salvatore Mancuso, who has been accused of
seventy-five thousand crimes and has admitted to three hundred
murders.

Cepeda’s track record in human rights defense could help him attract
the 5 percent of voters who supported centrists Sergio Fajardo and
Claudia López in the first round, in addition to the portion of
conservative Paloma Valencia’s electorate that feels closer to
Oviedo, her vice-presidential candidate. Another challenge will be to
mobilize new voters beyond the Pacto Histórico’s bedrock, which
already turned out in the first round. In 2022, Petro gained 2.7
million votes between the two rounds, at a time when the previous
president, right-winger Iván Duque, was highly unpopular, and the
Pacto Histórico and Petro were perceived as the political expression
of the massive protests that had erupted in previous years against
Duque’s neoliberal policies. Today’s political context is more
marked by the increase in violence in many territories (although the
homicide rate has stabilized nationwide) and by Trump’s regional
influence.

The Trump Factor

The US President’s shadow has been looming over Colombian politics
since the start of his second term, and especially since the release
of the new National Security Strategy, which aims to reaffirm
Washington’s political, economic, and military hegemony over the
Americas.

In January, following the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro, Cepeda warned
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in an interview with Jacobin of possible electoral interference from
Washington like that suffered by Honduras and Argentina. Trump went so
far as to include Petro — one of the voices that has most
forcefully denounced the genocide in Gaza — on the “Clinton
List” of drug-trafficking accomplices and threatened armed
intervention against Colombia. Such attacks make up a key part of
Washington’s hegemony over Colombia, where the United States has a
significant military presence and a long history of security
cooperation justified by the war on drugs. Although Trump suspended
his threats in February after a meeting with Petro, the specter of
more or less direct intervention to prevent a Cepeda victory is very
much present.

So far the State Department has only stated that it “supports the
right of Colombians to freely choose the leadership of their
country,” and Trump has not directly endorsed any candidate. But now
that the Colombian right has regrouped around De la Espriella, open
intervention becomes more likely. The ultraconservative candidate has
said that as president he will “restore” relations with the United
States and has asked the northern neighbor to “monitor the
runoff.” News of a meeting
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between Republican Senator Bernie Moreno
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and De la Espriella and Valencia could point in this direction.

However, Trump’s overt imperialism toward the region — which even
Latin American governments allied with the tycoon have suffered from
in the form of tariffs and racist immigration policies — is
triggering a sovereigntist backlash in Colombia that could help
catapult Cepeda to the presidency. As happened before with Mexico’s
Claudia Sheinbaum and Brazil’s Lula da Silva, in recent months Petro
has seen his popularity rise in tandem with his confrontation with
Trump. Part of that popularity has transferred to Cepeda, who in the
runoff should highlight his opponent’s submission to Trump’s
agenda for Colombia and Latin America.

On June 21, Colombia will decide whether to continue the path of
social and environmental transformation begun by Petro or to plunge
into a dystopia of militarism and social cuts. This latter course
would undoubtedly worsen the country’s internal armed conflict and
the social injustices that gave rise to it, even endangering
Colombia’s imperfect democracy. The repercussions of either outcome
will resonate far beyond this country alone.

Pablo Castaño is a freelance journalist and political scientist. He
holds a PhD in Politics from the Autonomous University of Barcelona
and has written for Ctxt, Público, Regards, and the Independent.

 

* Columbia
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* Politics
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* foreign elections
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* far right
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* Gustavo Petro
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* Donald Trump
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