标签： South America

Colombia is facing a seismic political shift after preliminary runoff election results showed right-wing outsider candidate Abelardo de la Espriella, who goes by the nickname “El Tigre” (The Tiger), has secured a razor-thin victory over his left-wing opponent Iván Cepeda, a close ally of sitting president Gustavo Petro. With more than 99% of ballots counted in the June runoff, initial tallies put de la Espriella at 49.7% of the vote, compared to Cepeda’s 48.7% — a margin of just one percentage point that has left the nation deeply divided.

A lawyer and businessman with no prior elected political experience, de la Espriella campaigned on a hardline platform centered on reversing Petro’s flagship peace negotiation strategy and cracking down on the country’s spiraling armed conflict and drug trade. Endorsed early by former U.S. President Donald Trump, he has pledged to abandon all talks with illegal armed groups, including FARC dissidents, the ELN, and Clan del Golfo, and instead ramp up military operations against these organizations, expand cooperation with U.S. security agencies, and construct new maximum-security mega-prisons in remote jungle regions. He has also outlined plans to shrink the size of the national bureaucracy and overhaul Colombia’s public health system.

Colombia’s decades-long internal conflict has escalated sharply in recent years: armed group membership has doubled over the last five years, as factions fight for control of profitable cocaine trafficking routes and illegal mining operations. As the world’s top cocaine producer, Colombia has seen output hit record highs, and a 2025 offensive along the Venezuela border displaced more than 30,000 people. Critics of Petro’s “total peace” initiative, which prioritized ceasefires and negotiations with armed groups, argue the policy has allowed criminal organizations to expand their territory and power unchecked, creating a opening for de la Espriella’s tough-on-crime message to resonate with voters.

Raised on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, de la Espriella drew overwhelming regional support, and celebrated the preliminary result alongside thousands of jubilant supporters in Barranquilla, addressing the crowd from a stage lined with images of his face. “Tonight marks the beginning of a new story for the nation, tonight a new era begins, a change of order,” he told the gathered crowd. He emphasized he would govern for all Colombians — both his supporters and those who backed his opponent — and pledged unwavering loyalty to the country’s 1991 constitution. Supporters waved national flags, donned yellow Colombian national football jerseys (a staple of de la Espriella’s campaign that critics have slammed as politicization of the national team), and chanted slogans including “Petro out!” and “Make Colombia Great Again” on red baseball caps echoing Trump’s iconic campaign merchandise. Fireworks capped off the evening of celebration.

The narrow margin has sparked immediate backlash from the left, however. Cepeda has refused to concede the race, noting that the preliminary count is not official or legally binding. “Once the official canvass takes place and its final result is produced, and the corresponding verifications have been carried out, we will recognize the official result that emerges from that structure,” he said. According to Reuters reporting, the official verification process produced almost no changes to preliminary counts in the May 31 first round, reducing the likelihood of a major shift in the final runoff result. Even so, sitting president Petro has already backed calls for a full audit of voting software, repeating unsubstantiated claims that dozens of polling stations were “compromised” and suggested neither candidate should be declared president based on preliminary results.

Across the country, deep unease lingers over the divided result. Left-wing activists and Cepeda supporters say the razor-thin outcome lays bare the nation’s extreme polarization. “Such a narrow margin also worries us, because it reflects how divided the country is and the enormous challenges we face in defending democracy, peace, and people’s rights,” Catalina La Grande, a student activist in Barranquilla, told the BBC. While most post-result protests remained peaceful, late Sunday saw violent clashes break out in Cali, Colombia’s third-largest city, where demonstrators burned U.S. flags and police deployed tear gas to disperse crowds angered by the outcome.

De la Espriella’s political profile carries unusual international context: he has held U.S. citizenship since 2023, after years of living and working in Miami, Florida. As a defense attorney, he previously represented high-profile clients including Alex Saab, an ally of Venezuela’s ousted leader Nicolás Maduro who faces U.S. money laundering charges, and David Murcia Guzman, one of Colombia’s most notorious convicted fraudsters. De la Espriella has described this work as standard practice for a defense lawyer. Observers have frequently drawn comparisons between de la Espriella and El Salvador’s populist hardline president Nayib Bukele, both for his aggressive security agenda and similar personal style, including his signature beard. He often speaks to crowds behind bulletproof glass, and his supporters regularly perform military-style salutes at campaign events.

The result has already been celebrated by conservative leaders across the hemisphere and in the United States. Trump called the win in a post on Truth Social: “He Won, BIG!”, and had previously promised de la Espriella the “total support and strength of the United States” if he won. Argentina’s populist right-wing President Javier Milei released a statement praising Colombians for choosing “economic freedom, prosperity, unwavering security, and telling organised transnational crime and drug trafficking ENOUGH ALREADY.” Chile’s right-wing president José Antonio Kast added that “a new stage of freedom begins for Colombia that will allow them to recover security and prosperity.”

De la Espriella’s victory caps a broader regional shift to the right across Latin America, where rising public concern over violent crime and insecurity has propelled hardline conservative candidates to power in recent years. It also marks a potential reset in U.S.-Colombia relations, which have become strained during Petro’s presidency, marked by public clashes between Petro and U.S. leaders over migration policy, trade tariffs, and military intervention in the region. For Colombia, the coming weeks will center on official vote verification, as the nation waits to confirm whether the narrow preliminary result will stand, and what “El Tigre’s” hardline new era will mean for the country’s decades-long conflict.

BOGOTA, Colombia – As Colombia prepares to select its next head of state in this Sunday’s presidential runoff, a deeply fractured electorate stands at a crossroads, with the nation’s decades-long struggle with violence shaping every thread of the high-stakes race. Two candidates from opposite ends of the ideological spectrum – conservative political outsider Abelardo de la Espriella and progressive lawmaker Iván Cepeda, the standard-bearer of outgoing President Gustavo Petro’s leftist movement – are vying for the nation’s top office, both leaning into widespread public anxiety over a potential resurgence of internal armed conflict to win over voters. The pair secured their spots in the runoff after outperforming nine other challengers in the May 31 first round of voting.

The defining issue of this election has been how to address the resurgence of widespread violence that has gripped Colombia a decade after the nation signed a landmark peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), an agreement that was once hailed as a permanent end to the vicious cycle of government-rebel fighting that stretched back generations. After the 2015 peace pact, hope for long-term stability quickly faded: most former rebel groups abandoned ideological warfare to pursue the massive profits of the drug trade, sparking deadly turf wars that have sent homicide rates soaring to their highest point in a decade. In 2024, official data recorded 14,780 homicides, a surge driven by clashes between competing illegal armed groups that even claimed the life of conservative presidential candidate Miguel Uribe during the campaign. Extortion rates have also exploded, hitting 13,417 reported cases in 2025 – more than double the number recorded just 10 years earlier. The violence that once defined Colombian life, including car bombings, mass kidnappings, forced disappearances, and widespread displacement, has reemerged as a top voter concern, and both candidates have positioned their policy platforms as the only path back to security.

De la Espriella, a wealthy businessman and lawyer nicknamed “The Tiger” who is making his first run for elected office, has adopted a harsh, hardline security strategy modeled directly on the controversial policies of El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele. His plan includes cracking down on all illegal armed groups and constructing 10 new mega-prisons to incarcerate thousands of suspected criminals. The approach has earned him high-profile support from former U.S. President Donald Trump, though it has drawn criticism over potential human rights violations, mirroring the accusations leveled at Bukele’s policies in El Salvador, which have reduced homicide rates but sparked widespread outcry over mass detentions and due process violations.

On the other side, Cepeda – a long-serving lawmaker and political heir to Petro, Colombia’s first leftist head of state – is running to continue Petro’s flagship “total peace” initiative, which prioritizes opening dialogue and negotiating peace agreements with all active illegal armed groups. Petro’s 2022 initiative has been widely panned for its lack of progress over three years: only this Thursday did the first small faction, comprising roughly 100 dissident guerrilla fighters, formally disarm and enter a civilian resettlement program, while Colombia is still home to more than 27,000 active members of illegal armed groups. Still, supporters of the strategy argue the decades-long conflict cannot be resolved in a single presidential term, and that the plan deserves more time to deliver results.

Beyond security, the two candidates have also put forward starkly different solutions for Colombia’s other pressing crises: a collapsing public health system, rapidly growing national public debt, and deeply rooted systemic corruption that has plagued Colombian politics for generations.

Official first-round results show a remarkably tight race: de la Espriella earned 44% of the first-round vote, while Cepeda finished just behind with 41%, a surprise finish that saw Cepeda slip from his consistent lead in pre-election polling. After the results were announced, Petro raised unsubstantiated questions about election fraud, deepening the already severe political polarization that has split the nation in the lead-up to the runoff.

The campaign has been marked by escalating personal attacks and widespread accusations of misconduct, ranging from fraud and vote-buying to voter intimidation. Cepeda has even filed formal complaints against de la Espriella with both Colombia’s Attorney General’s Office and the International Criminal Court, alleging de la Espriella has longstanding ties to illegal paramilitary groups – allegations that de la Espriella has forcefully denied.

For ordinary Colombians, the anxiety over the election’s outcome and the threat of renewed conflict runs deep. “Right now, what worries me is the polarization that exists between us: there are two very extreme sides, and the violence is concerning,” said John Manrique, a Bogota-based lawyer, as he walked through the capital. “What I hope is that people accept who won. Let’s accept it, regardless of the side, and try to reach a social consensus. … Let’s not go out and fight.”

Yamile Guevara, a retired Bogota teacher and committed Cepeda supporter, argued that Petro’s peace initiative has been unfairly judged, given the 60-year history of conflict that cannot be undone in four years. She also pushed back against long-standing stigma against Colombia’s left, which has for decades been unfairly associated with rebel violence. “The left has always been viewed negatively; it has been harsh, and many people have died,” Guevara said. “So, one wonders what’s wrong with people who have forgotten history … how can they not think carefully about which candidate they are going to elect?”

More than 41 million eligible Colombian voters are registered to cast their ballots this Sunday, as the nation waits to see whether voters will embrace a hardline security crackdown or give the progressive peace process a second chance.

As Colombia prepares for its decisive presidential runoff election on Sunday, spiraling violence and widespread insecurity have emerged as the defining issue splitting voters and overshadowing the entire campaign. For countless Colombians displaced by criminal conflict, the stakes of this election are not just political — they are a matter of survival.

Edilma Martinez Flores, now staying at a support center for internally displaced people in Bogotá, knows this reality all too well. After armed criminal groups distributed leaflets ordering residents to abandon their homes on the outskirts of Cali or face deadly retaliation, she lost her brother to assassination when he refused to pay extortion fees — killed in front of his own children. “We had no choice but to leave our things behind. They started placing bombs along the routes people travel,” she explains. She is one of tens of thousands of Colombians forced from their homes by escalating clashes between illegal armed factions that have seized control of vast swathes of rural territory.

Colombia’s history of armed conflict stretching back 60 years has already claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. What makes the current crisis unprecedented is the rapid expansion of illegal groups over the past half-decade: their membership has roughly doubled since 2021, with FARC dissident factions, the National Liberation Army (ELN), and the Clan del Golfo criminal network fighting for control of land critical to drug trafficking and illegal mining. A 2025 brutal offensive between ELN and FARC dissidents near the Colombia-Venezuela border alone displaced tens of thousands of people. Official data confirms the scale of the crisis: forced displacement surged 300% between 2024 and 2025, a level not seen in 20 years.

Isabelita Mercado Pineda, a Bogotá-based government advisor focused on peace, victim support and reconciliation, attributes the crisis to multiple overlapping factors. Growing cocaine production has created massive profit incentives for armed groups, while the Colombian military failed to fill territorial vacuums left after the 2016 peace deal demobilized most FARC fighters. Mercado Pineda also criticizes the outgoing government’s peace strategy, arguing it offers only incentives to criminal groups without sufficient enforcement to curb their expansion. Support centers across the capital bear witness to this human cost: Erin Gamboa, from the violence-plagued Pacific Chocó region, still has no news of his half-brother, abducted by FARC fighters amid constant battles for control of illegal mining and cocaine routes. Another anonymous couple running a small food delivery business told of extortionists claiming ties to the FARC demanding 5 million pesos (roughly $1,500) from their children, leaving them too afraid to leave their home in peace.

This election offers voters two starkly contrasting visions to address the crisis, put forward by candidates who finished neck-and-neck in the first round of voting, with conservative outsider Abelardo de la Espriella holding a narrow lead over left-wing senator Iván Cepeda. The campaign has already been marred by violence, including the assassination of a lower-tier presidential candidate, widespread homicides, kidnappings, and bomb attacks across the country.

Cepeda, a key architect of outgoing President Gustavo Petro’s flagship “total peace” strategy and a central figure in the 2016 FARC peace accord, prioritizes negotiated settlements with armed groups over all-out military confrontation. Critics argue the current peace approach has failed, allowing criminal factions to exploit ceasefires to expand their territory and power. But supporters argue negotiation prevents the mass loss of life that comes with full-scale conflict. Cepeda has pledged to pursue urgent social transformations to address the roots of violence, while committing to review and adjust the existing peace strategy to fix its shortcomings. Among young Colombians, the candidate has built strong support by framing his approach as a break from failed hardline security policies of the past. “Cepeda’s proposal for security not only contemplates the coercive forces of the state to stop crime, but also takes into account the structural roots of insecurity — the lack of state presence, poverty, inequality, that push many young people into joining criminal groups,” explains student Catalina La Grande, a Cepeda supporter. “We don’t want to repeat security models from previous governments that have left thousands of victims and not solved the problems. We believe in negotiated security: combining repression of armed groups with social programmes.”

His challenger, de la Espriella — a right-wing businessman and lawyer who goes by the nickname “El Tigre” (The Tiger) and holds dual US-Colombian citizenship — has taken a hardline stance, promising to end all negotiations with armed groups and crush criminal networks through military force. A high-profile endorsement from former US President Donald Trump has amplified his outsider campaign, though the left has decried the endorsement as unacceptable foreign interference, amid a growing interventionist US stance on Latin American criminal networks. Trump has framed the election as critical to US-Colombia relations, saying “if Abelardo wins…[Colombia] will have the total support and strength of the United States behind him,” while labeling Cepeda a “radical left Marxist.”

De la Espriella’s signature policy proposal is the construction of 10 mega-prisons to hold incarcerated gang members, and he has pledged that any criminal who refuses to surrender will be killed. Raised on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, where he retains strong regional support, his backers frame his tough tone as exactly what the country needs after years of rising violence. “He has achieved everything he has set out in life, he is a man with very strong convictions. He has that character, courage, it’s what we need for Colombia, a person who is tough on drug-trafficking, tough on guerillas,” says Maria Luisa Sanchez, a childhood neighbour and family friend. Sandra Caballero, a supporter from a village outside Barranquilla, adds: “He will work with the United States to fight drug trafficking and doesn’t plan to speak with criminals — which has not given results in four years. He wants to change taxes to help companies generate more jobs and invest in security and health.”

As Colombians gathered last week to celebrate their national football team’s 2-1 opening win over Uzbekistan at the World Cup, the streets of Bogotá briefly rang with unified celebration. But the coming election will lay the country’s deep divides bare: with two candidates offering fundamentally different paths to address the country’s decades-long violence, Sunday’s vote will shape the future of security and peace for millions of Colombians for years to come.

After months of escalating anti-government demonstrations that have paralyzed swathes of Bolivia and choked supply chains across the country, center-right President Rodrigo Duterte? No, Rodrigo Paz has activated a national state of emergency to clear protester-led roadblocks that have triggered crippling shortages of essential goods. The emergency declaration grants the executive expanded authority to disperse blockades and restore public order, marking the most drastic step Paz has taken to date to address the unrest that has shaken his young administration, which took office following October 2025 elections.

Per Bolivia’s constitutional framework, Congress now has a 72-hour window to formally approve or reject the emergency measure. In public remarks, Paz framed the action as a necessary defense of national stability, arguing that the sustained blockades have held ordinary Bolivian citizens hostage, preventing access to workplaces, schools, medical care and basic groceries for families across the country. “Bolivians cannot continue to be hostages of blockades that prevent working, studying, receiving medical attention, supplying themselves, and bringing sustenance to their homes,” he shared in a social media post Saturday.

The wave of protests first erupted in late April 2026, initially sparked by a controversial land reform proposal put forward by Paz’s government. Critics of the plan warned it would clear the way for large landowners to acquire small, community-held plots, a charge that prompted widespread pushback from farming and indigenous communities. Facing growing unrest, Paz ultimately withdrew the reform proposal, but the movement quickly expanded as other groups joined to air grievances over a series of the government’s economic and policy changes.

Central to the current demands are calls to reinstate long-standing fuel subsidies that Paz has cut, roll back the administration’s broader austerity agenda, and remove the president from office entirely. Demonstrators have also pushed back against proposed constitutional amendments that Paz argues are critical to attracting much-needed private investment to Bolivia’s economy. Opponents of the changes counter that they would weaken regulatory oversight of the country’s valuable natural resources and leave key economic sectors vulnerable to exploitation.

Months of unrest have already left several people dead and hundreds of protesters in custody, according to official and on-the-ground reports. Paz has repeatedly claimed the crisis is not a spontaneous expression of public discontent, but a coordinated plot to destabilize his government. He has directly accused left-wing former President Evo Morales of orchestrating the demonstrations, an allegation Morales has publicly denied.

In advance of declaring the state of emergency, Paz announced a breakthrough deal with Bolivia’s largest union, the Bolivian Workers’ Confederation, in a move that appeared designed to split the broader protest movement. But AFP reports that key indigenous factions have rejected the agreement and pledged to continue their demonstrations, with major roadblocks remaining in place across key transport routes as of Saturday. On-the-ground reporting from journalists confirmed heavy police and military presence in major public squares across the country on Saturday, a visible sign of the government’s heightened security posture. Road blockades have already exacerbated existing shortages of fuel and other essential supplies, leaving communities across Bolivia struggling to access basic necessities.

Prior to this week’s emergency declaration, Paz had already implemented a series of concessions in a bid to quell the unrest: he reshuffled his entire cabinet, cut his own salary and that of his senior ministers by 50%, and launched a formal negotiation council to engage with alienated sectors of society. None of these moves succeeded in ending the demonstrations. Last month, Congress, which approved legislation that streamlined the president’s authority to declare a state of emergency and deploy military personnel to respond to public unrest, cleared the legal path for Saturday’s announcement.

Five weeks of mass anti-government protests have pushed Bolivia into a deep political and humanitarian crisis, prompting President Rodrigo Paz to issue a 90-day national state of emergency that grants the military sweeping authority to clear road blockades that have paralyzed supply chains across the country’s major urban centers, including the administrative capital La Paz.

The demonstrations, led largely by highland Indigenous and rural worker groups that helped elect Paz to office last November, were triggered by the president’s sweeping austerity reforms — most notably the controversial cancellation of decades-long national fuel subsidies. Protesters have demanded Paz’s immediate resignation, arguing his administration has abandoned the working-class and rural communities that form the backbone of Bolivia’s population.

What began as peaceful demonstrations has devolved into repeated violent clashes between demonstrators armed with dynamite and national riot police. Official government data confirms at least 365 people have been arrested and 37 others injured since the protests began. Independent human rights groups and Bolivia’s national ombudsman’s office have recorded at least 17 fatalities linked to the unrest, the vast majority of which stem from blocked access to emergency medical care. Government figures add that at least seven of those deaths occurred when critically ill patients were unable to reach hospitals across barricaded routes.

Key arterial roads connecting La Paz to the rest of the country have been completely blocked by protester-erected barricades, cutting off the capital of 1.8 million people from critical fuel and food shipments. Supermarket shelves have been emptied as local businesses shuttered operations amid unrest, hospitals have reported critical shortages of medical oxygen, and all ground transportation across the region has been paralyzed.

In a live nationally televised address Saturday, Paz framed the emergency declaration as a measure to protect, rather than restrict, public freedom. “This is not a state of emergency to restrict people’s lives. It is a state of emergency to give people back their freedom,” he said.

The official decree bans all public blockades of streets, avenues, and highways that disrupt transportation and essential supply flows, and authorizes the armed forces to provide temporary support to national police to re-open critical routes and restore public safety. The text of the order explicitly states that no constitutional due process rights or fundamental guarantees will be suspended during the emergency, and that ordinary daily activities will remain unaffected. While the state of emergency is set to run for 90 days, government officials note it could be lifted early if all violent unrest and blockades are ended.

Late Friday, Paz secured a breakthrough with one major labor union, whose leadership agreed to call on its members to lift their blockades. But hardline core protest groups have rejected all negotiations and maintained their demand that Paz resign immediately.

Paz’s election last November ended nearly two decades of uninterrupted rule by the left-wing Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party, which left Bolivia grappling with the worst economic crisis the country has seen in a generation. A centrist candidate who defeated more hardline conservative challengers, Paz campaigned on a pledge to resolve chronic national fuel shortages, refill the nearly depleted central bank reserves, and preserve the popular social welfare programs that made MAS a dominant political force for decades.

However, his austerity agenda has sent already high inflation soaring across the country. While the administration succeeded in ending widespread fuel shortages, it was forced to sell low-quality gasoline that damaged thousands of civilian vehicles, sparking further public anger. Proposed pro-market reforms designed to attract foreign investment and boost economic growth have also been stalled in Congress, where opposition parties hold a majority.

The current political landscape leaves Paz squeezed between two opposing forces: the hard-right faction that controls Congress, and the ousted left-wing MAS. Former MAS President Evo Morales, who is currently evading an arrest warrant on statutory rape charges from a hideout in Bolivia’s coca-growing tropical lowlands, has publicly backed the protests and called for an immediate new national election.

International backing for Paz’s government has come from the United States, which saw relations with Bolivia restored after years of anti-Western policy under the Morales administration. Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with Paz to confirm that Washington is ramping up emergency assistance and logistical support to help alleviate the supply shortages caused by road blockades.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth went further, publicly denouncing the protests as a deliberate attempt to overthrow Bolivia’s democratically elected legitimate government. In a post on the social platform X, Hegseth issued a sharp warning to groups he accused of profiting from death and destruction in the Western Hemisphere, writing: “The United States is watching.”

Reporting from Buenos Aires, Argentina, Isabel Debre contributed to this story.