Abelardo de la Espriella, a tough-talking lawyer and businessman, took the lead in Colombia’s presidential election on Sunday night, with about 43.7% of the total votes according to results released by the national civil registry, while Iván Cepeda, a seasoned politician from the Pacto Histórico party led by incumbent President Gustavo Petro, followed with 40.9%.
Petro, however, has cast doubt on the results of the first round of voting, alleging in a social media post that the preliminary vote-counting software added 800,000 voters who do not exist. Petro said that the only results that he would “heed and accept” are those that come out of the official scrutiny process—a dayslong process wherein Colombian commissions of judges, notaries, and other delegates review election records.
The elections are expected to be a referendum on Petro, Colombia’s first leftist President, as progressive leaders in Latin America increasingly face pressure—not only from their respective constituents, but also from the Trump Administration—to focus more on curbing gang violence and ramping up domestic security.
De la Espriella, 47, who refers to himself as “The Tiger,” is a political novice running as an independent under a movement called Defensores de la Patria (Defenders of the Homeland) and positions himself as an anti-establishment conservative.
De la Espriella rejects gender ideology and has been previously slammed for actions deemed homophobic. On abortion, de la Espriella said he was “pro-life”. On firearms, he has expressed support for the legalization of civilians carrying them.
Like El Salvador’s Bukele, de la Espriella presents himself as tough on crime, countering Petro’s “total peace” approach of attempting dialogue with armed rebels to end violence in the country. De la Espriella promised to “fight with an iron fist the criminals, the corrupt, the unpunished criminals and anyone who intends to continue threatening the existence of Colombia.” Also mirroring Bukele’s approach, de la Espriella has proposed the construction of 10 megaprisons.
But de la Espriella’s opponents question his commitment to cracking down on crime, after he represented several controversial figures in Colombia. He was the former lawyer of David Murcia Guzmán, who masterminded a giant pyramid scheme in the country, and of Alex Saab, a close business associate of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro who was deported to the U.S. last month and indicted for money laundering. De la Espriella also represented some high-profile victims, including Natalia Ponce de León, who was the target of an acid attack in 2014, and Rosa Elvira Cely, whose murder in 2012 generated national outrage and led to the creation of Colombia’s femicide laws.
Who is Iván Cepeda?
If de la Espriella promises radical change in Colombia, Cepeda, 63, offers continuity. Cepeda, a Bogotá native, is a political veteran who led in opinion polling before the Sunday elections.
In 2010, back in Colombia, he entered politics by winning an election to be a congressman and later won a Senate seat in 2014. As senator, Cepeda exposed former President Álvaro Uribe's alleged ties to paramilitary groups. Uribe sued Cepeda for allegedly manipulating witnesses, but the Supreme Court cleared Cepeda of wrongdoing. Uribe was himself later charged and convicted of bribing witnesses in the same case, though the conviction was overturned months later.
Compared to his political opponent de la Espriella, Cepeda espouses a human-centric approach to drugs in Colombia. He rejects widespread herbicide spraying as a means to cut the supply of drug crops, opting for farmers to agree to replace them with legal alternatives, with government assistance. According to El Espectador, Cepeda has explained that most farmers plant coca crops not out of choice but due to a lack of available resources.
What are the implications for U.S.-Colombia ties?
Both de la Espriella and Cepeda want to improve diplomatic ties with the U.S., but being on opposite sides of the political spectrum means their approaches are vastly different. The two countries are longstanding security allies, but Trump has criticized Colombia under Petro for supposedly failing to stem the supply of cocaine and has even mused about a possible military intervention similar to that in Venezuela.
If de la Espriella wins in the second round, he’s expected to bring the country ideologically closer to the U.S., in line with Trump’s push to influence affairs within Latin America. Recent elections in the region show a rightward shift, including in Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru.
Speaking to Agencia EFE in March, de la Espriella said that he admires Trump’s “cultural battle against wokism, against globalism,” and that, should he win, he will fortify “the military alliance with the United States and with the State of Israel,”after Petro broke off diplomatic relations with Israel in 2024 because of the war in the Gaza Strip.
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