标签： South America

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA – In a clear repudiation of unfounded electoral fraud allegations leveled by Colombian President Gustavo Petro, the European Union’s independent Electoral Observation Mission has formally ruled out any large-scale tampering in Sunday’s first-round presidential vote, confirming the ballot process was conducted with transparency and organizational efficiency.

President Petro, who is constitutionally barred from seeking re-election, sparked deep political uncertainty in the days after the first round by posting repeated claims on social platform X that hundreds of thousands of ineligible voters were illegally added to national voter rolls ahead of the contest. In his most recent allegation shared Tuesday, Petro claimed 885,000 voters were registered after the legally mandated March 31 cutoff, and that multiple polling stations recorded suspiciously high ballot turnout numbers. He offered no concrete evidence to back up either claim.

The mission’s chief, senior European lawmaker Esteban González Pons, told reporters Tuesday that the independent observation team found no evidence of systemic misconduct to support Petro’s accusations. To verify the integrity of the count, observers pulled a random national sample of official tally sheets and cross-checked them against physical paper ballots, finding zero discrepancies between the two datasets. “We can discard any manipulation of data in the quick count and in the final count,” González Pons confirmed, adding that none of the 12 presidential candidates who competed in Sunday’s first round had formally submitted documented claims of electoral irregularities to the mission.

Colombia’s National Registrars Office, the government body tasked with organizing and administering national elections, also pushed back against the fraud claims Monday. By that evening, the office announced it had completed review of 99.98% of all polling stations across the country, finding only a minimal 0.06% variation from the unofficial quick count published hours after polls closed Sunday – a margin well within acceptable statistical ranges.

The first round results have set up a polarized runoff election scheduled for June 21, pitting conservative lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella against left-wing Sen. Iván Cepeda, the candidate from Petro’s ruling Historical Pact coalition. Official certified results show de la Espriella earned 43.7% of the more than 23 million votes cast, while Cepeda finished just shy of the lead with 40.9%. No candidate earned the 50% plus one majority required to win outright in the first round, triggering the mandatory two-candidate runoff.

Cepeda initially echoed the ruling coalition’s doubts over the result Sunday, refusing to accept the preliminary quick count and saying he would wait for a formal audit overseen by independent judges and notaries to comment. By Monday, however, he softened his stance, acknowledging that party-appointed election monitors had not uncovered “irregularities of a sufficient dimension to speak of fraud.” Cepeda has gone on to confirm he will compete in the June 21 runoff, issued a public debate challenge to de la Espriella, and expressed confidence he will secure victory in the second round.

Under Colombian electoral law, final official election results are verified and certified by an independent panel of judges, not the sitting head of state, with certification typically completed within two weeks of voting. Despite the pushback from independent observers and electoral authorities, political analysts warn that Petro’s repeated unsubstantiated fraud claims carry significant risks: the allegations could deepen already sharp partisan divides across the country and stoke the risk of political violence in the weeks leading up to the high-stakes runoff vote.

On the sun-baked desert stretches of northwestern Peru’s Pacific coast, Gladys Saavedra greets unfamiliar faces at her small Trujillo market stall with quiet wariness. Saavedra is one of dozens of female vendors who, even with meager daily sales, are forced to pool $300 every month to pay off criminal extortionists. Refusal comes with a devastating price: when the group stood their ground against demands last June, their entire market was burned to the ground.

Days after the attack, the women marched through city streets demanding state protection. For Saavedra, however, the lack of meaningful action from authorities came as no surprise. Already in August 2024, her own home had been targeted with explosives in a separate extortion attempt, and police failed to hold anyone accountable. This pervasive climate of gang violence is the defining issue hanging over Peru’s presidential runoff election, scheduled for Sunday, with many voters planning to travel to polling stations gripped by fear of falling victim to attack along the way. “You can’t even stick your head out for fear of being shot,” the 49-year-old vendor said.

The root of Peru’s worsening public safety crisis traces directly to the multi-billion-dollar illegal gold mining industry that has fueled the rapid expansion of organized crime across the country. While extortion first emerged in Trujillo more than two decades ago, official data shows the crime has exploded nationwide over the past five years: reported extortion claims have risen fivefold to hit 28,948 in 2025, while national homicides have doubled to 2,226 over the same period.

Police and security analysts explain that Trujillo-based gangs first built their power base by offering armed protection to illegal gold mining operations in nearby rural areas. The massive profits from this racket allowed them to expand into the city, hiring professional hitmen, acquiring military-grade weapons, and cementing control over urban extortion rings. Official estimates peg annual revenue from illegal mining at roughly $7 billion — nearly six times the $1.2 billion Peru’s criminal networks earn annually from drug trafficking. In 2025, the country exported 100 tons of illegally mined gold, almost matching the 109 tons of legally extracted gold shipped to global markets.

Early targets of extortion were public transportation operators, with drivers executed en masse when they refused to pay up. Last year alone, the independent Observatory of Crime and Violence recorded at least 239 transportation worker killings nationwide, more than half of which were motorcycle taxi drivers — a common form of transit in underdeveloped outer-city neighborhoods with unpaved roads. The murders of bus drivers have sparked widespread citywide transportation strikes and mass protests against government inaction.

Today, no sector of the local economy is spared from criminal extortion. In one Trujillo neighborhood that produces a quarter of Peru’s domestic footwear, union leader Máximo Varas estimates that roughly 1,500 small shoemaking business owners pay regular protection money to operate. “Everyone pays — even I get extorted. No one is safe,” Varas said. Across the city, marked stickers featuring symbols like a puma, a cross, or the Batman logo are plastered on the facades of buses, restaurants, corner stores, nightclubs, and even schools. Law enforcement has confirmed these stickers serve as public signals that a business has paid its required fee, and police regularly conduct removal operations to replace criminal markers with official law enforcement decals.

For 58-year-old local businessman Iván Díaz, the escalation of violence in Trujillo has been nothing short of exponential. In 2023, he was kidnapped from his office by attackers posing as police officers, who held him captive for 11 days. To force his family to pay a $250,000 ransom, the kidnappers cut off portions of two fingers on his right hand and sent torture videos to his relatives to pressure for quick payment. “I had to adapt to reality and keep a cool head,” Díaz recalled. In May, four members of the notorious Los Pulpos gang — a criminal network that formed in Trujillo in the 1990s and later expanded into neighboring Chile — were sentenced to life imprisonment for their roles in the kidnapping.

The economic toll of endemic crime on Peru is staggering: the Ministry of Economy estimated in July that criminal activity costs the country roughly $5 billion annually, a sum that includes both public spending on police operations and private costs for businesses and families that invest in surveillance cameras and private security guards. While wealthy municipalities in the capital, such as San Borja where both presidential candidates — conservative Keiko Fujimori and progressive Roberto Sánchez — reside, benefit from heavy uniformed police presence and additional private security patrols, working-class outlying neighborhoods across the country lack basic infrastructure like paved roads, potable water, and electricity — and above all, consistent police presence.

Security experts agree that turning the tide against organized crime requires two major overhauls: a widespread anti-corruption purge of Peru’s 130,000-strong national police force, and a massive injection of funding for criminal investigations. One active organized crime investigator, who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on speaking to media, confirmed that outdated technology leaves police unable to track mobile accounts linked to the digital wallets criminals use to collect extortion payments.

Harvey Colchado, a congressman-elect and retired police officer, explained that budget cuts have gutted investigative capacity: five years ago, each of the country’s 70 police investigative units received a monthly budget of $29,000, but today the units have no allocated funding at all, as the state redirected resources elsewhere. Compounding this underfunding, Colchado said, are recent laws passed with bipartisan support from both Fujimori’s and Sánchez’s political parties that have made it far harder to prosecute and penalize organized crime members. The reforms eliminated preliminary detention for certain offenses and raised the legal threshold for seizing criminal assets and conducting search warrants.

For Saavedra and the thousands of Peruvians living under daily criminal control, this systemic failure has left communities completely unprotected. “This is a cancer,” she said. “(Police) don’t have the resources to trace the calls, to know where the messages are coming from. That’s the only way to stop it.”

In a late announcement issued Monday, the second Trump administration unveiled a proposal to levy 25% tariffs on a portion of Brazilian imports to the United States, opening a new flashpoint in bilateral trade tensions between the two Western Hemisphere powers. The proposal follows a months-long investigation conducted by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), which accuses Brazil, the world’s 10th-largest economy, of maintaining trade practices that Washington labels unreasonable and harmful to American commercial interests. Among the specific allegations cited are insufficient anti-corruption enforcement by Brazilian authorities and existing unfair Brazilian tariff barriers that disadvantage U.S. exporters.

USTR chief Jamieson Greer acknowledged that the Trump administration had held what he described as constructive discussions with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and other senior Brazilian economic and trade officials in recent weeks. Despite those talks, however, Greer confirmed that the two sides remain far apart on addressing the core concerns raised during the Section 301 investigation. “We continue to have substantial differences in resolving the issues identified in this investigation,” Greer stated in formal comments accompanying the proposal. To allow for public and industry input, the USTR has scheduled a public hearing on the planned tariffs for July 6, giving interested stakeholders an opportunity to comment on the potential economic impacts of the new duties.

The current proposal marks a strategic shift for the Trump administration, coming after the U.S. Supreme Court dealt a major legal blow to the administration’s earlier trade actions in February. In a landmark ruling, the high court found that Trump had overstepped his executive authority when he imposed a 25%? No correction: Last year, Trump imposed a 50% tariff on Brazilian goods using the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), a move widely interpreted as a protest against the Brazilian judiciary’s prosecution of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, Trump’s political ally. Bolsonaro, a right-wing populist who preceded Lula in office, is currently facing trial for his role in attempted coup efforts to overturn his narrow 2022 electoral defeat, a case that has drawn harsh criticism from Trump and his allies.

The Supreme Court’s February ruling invalidated all sweeping tariffs imposed by Trump under IEEPA, eliminating a key tool the administration had used to pressure trading partners and wiping out billions in projected tariff revenue. Unlike IEEPA, however, tariffs authorized under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act — the legal authority the administration is relying on for the new Brazilian tariffs — have withstood repeated legal challenges in U.S. courts. Trade analysts note the administration’s new move is part of a broader strategy to shift its aggressive trade agenda to a more legally solid foundation, while also working to recover lost tariff revenue from the scrapped IEEPA duties.

Ryan Majerus, a trade attorney and partner at the international law firm King & Spalding, pointed out that the proposed tariff package carves out exceptions for more than half of all U.S. imports from Brazil. Key excluded products include Brazilian civilian aircraft and critical industrial minerals, which are heavily relied on by U.S. manufacturing and aerospace sectors. The exemption of these strategically important goods suggests the administration has sought to limit potential economic backlash from U.S. industries that depend on Brazilian imports, while still maintaining pressure on the Brazilian government to make trade and policy concessions.

LIMA, Peru – As Peru braces for a high-stakes presidential runoff that will shape the future of a South American nation roiled by years of political upheaval and corruption, Indigenous shamans from across the country gathered Monday on the sunbaked shores of Lima’s Herradura Beach for a traditional blessing ritual focused on the two remaining candidates. Held in the coastal Chorrillos district, the centuries-old ceremony comes ahead of Sunday’s decisive vote, a contest that arrives amid a decade-long cycle of presidential ousters tied to widespread corruption scandals that have gutted public trust in the country’s political institutions.

This pre-election ritual is a longstanding cultural tradition, held at the turn of every new year and ahead of major electoral contests to invoke spiritual guidance for the country’s political future. The gathered shamans arranged public portraits of the two runoff contenders at their seaside altar, where they led chants and blessings using traditional ceremonial items: vivid flower petals, fresh fruit, sacred coca leaves, aromatic palo santo (known locally as “holy wood”), cured black tobacco, ceremonial swords, and symbolic ritual dolls. To close the public portion of the ceremony, participants lit brightly colored flares and beat traditional drums, filling the coastal air with rhythm and smoke.

The two candidates facing off Sunday are Keiko Fujimori, a conservative political figure and daughter of disgraced former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, and Roberto Sánchez, a nationalist former cabinet minister and sitting congressman. Polling ahead of the runoff shows the pair locked in a dead heat, with neither candidate holding a statistically significant lead over the other. The path to the runoff has already been rocky: in April’s crowded first-round election, Fujimori captured just over 17% of the vote, while Sánchez earned roughly 12% to claim the second spot. That initial round was marred by widespread logistical failures that left thousands of voters both in Peru and living overseas unable to cast their ballots, forcing the country’s national electoral body to spend weeks sorting through disputes and finalizing the two candidates who would advance to the runoff.

Andrés de los Santos, a shaman who traveled to the capital from northern Peru to participate in the ritual, emphasized the core purpose of the gathering: “The ritual we perform is primarily intended to ensure that the best candidate is the one who represents our Peru.” Unlike in past years, the assembled shamans chose not to issue a public prediction of the election’s outcome this cycle. That choice marks a departure from earlier ceremonies, when the group has publicly forecast political shifts: at the end of 2025, they predicted that Venezuela’s sitting President Nicolás Maduro, who currently faces U.S. drug trafficking charges, will leave office before the end of 2026.

Whoever claims victory on Sunday will step into the office of president as Peru’s ninth sitting head of state in just 10 years, a staggering pace of turnover driven by repeated corruption scandals. The winner will replace interim President José María Balcázar, who took office in February after his predecessor, interim leader José Jerí, was removed from office just four months into his term over widespread corruption allegations. The new president will be sworn in on July 28 to serve a full five-year term, tasked with stabilizing the country’s fractured political landscape and restoring public faith in government.

RIO DE JANEIRO – A controversial decision by the Trump administration to label two major Brazilian criminal gangs as foreign terrorist organizations is being framed as a politically motivated move to boost the electoral prospects of a pro-Trump Brazilian candidate ahead of the country’s tightly contested October presidential election, according to regional politicians and policy analysts.

The two groups in question — First Capital Command, better known by its Brazilian acronym PCC, and Red Command, or CV — are now among 10 Latin American criminal groups that hold the U.S. foreign terrorist organization designation. What sets this designation apart, however, is that unlike the eight other groups that earned this label, neither PCC nor CV operate within U.S. territory. The vast majority of cocaine trafficking activity linked to the two gangs is destined for European markets, with drug supply routes to the U.S. overwhelmingly running through Colombia, Mexico and Central America instead of Brazil, experts note.

The designation came just one week after Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, the son of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and a leading opposition candidate challenging incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, traveled to Washington to meet with Trump administration officials. Flávio Bolsonaro confirmed he personally requested the U.S. extend terrorist designation status to the two Rio-based gangs.

For Flávio Bolsonaro, the U.S. decision works to shore up his widely marketed hardline reputation on crime and public security, a key policy area where he has repeatedly hammered Lula’s administration for perceived weak governance. Analysts across the political spectrum agree the timing and framing of the designation is no coincidence.

“The main driver of this decision was politics: it is intended to pressure Lula and lift Flávio’s standing ahead of the October vote,” explained Brian Winter, a leading Latin America expert and editor of *Americas Quarterly*, published by the New York-based Council of the Americas. That assessment is echoed by Carolina Grillo, a sociology professor at Rio de Janeiro’s Fluminense Federal University and a leading scholar on Brazilian organized crime, who says the move is a clear attempt to sway the outcome of Brazil’s national election.

Grillo added that beyond the political calculations, the designation lacks policy logic: “The supply routes for cocaine entering the United States pass through Colombia, Mexico and Central American countries — not through Brazil. More than 90% of the cocaine seized in Brazil is destined for European countries.”

Lula has forcefully pushed back against the U.S. decision, framing it as unacceptable external interference in Brazil’s sovereign affairs. He pointed to ongoing law enforcement actions, including recent high-profile arrests and a sweeping ongoing investigation into PCC, as proof Brazil is capable of addressing its own domestic security challenges.

“I am very sad today, after the news that (U.S. officials) said that our criminals here are terrorists and that the Americans can intervene,” Lula told reporters on Friday. “We will not accept being treated like children. We will not accept being treated as if we were a banana republic.”

This is not the first time a Trump administration policy toward Brazil has boosted Lula’s political standing: Lula’s national popularity surged after Trump implemented a 50% tariff hike on Brazilian exports, which the incumbent framed as an attack on Brazilian national sovereignty. But political analysts say the current situation is far more complicated.

Creomar de Souza, an analyst with Brasilia-based political risk consultancy Dharma, notes that it will not be as straightforward for Lula to frame this decision as a clear attack on Brazilian sovereignty, in large part because Flávio Bolsonaro has already embraced the designation as a political win. “First of all, there’s Flávio’s propaganda. He will be able to hit hard against Lula’s Achilles heel, public security,” de Souza explained. “And this also depends on how the administration explains this to the public. It is not as simple as antagonizing Trump on tariffs.”

The move aligns with a broader pattern of open support from Trump for right-wing, pro-Trump candidates across Latin America, including José Antonio Kast in Chile, Javier Milei in Argentina and Daniel Noboa in Ecuador. Like his father, Flávio Bolsonaro has campaigned on a promise to shift Brazil’s trade alignment away from China and toward the U.S. under a second Trump administration.

Carlos Melo, a political science professor at Sao Paulo’s Insper university, noted that the designation advances long-held U.S. economic goals in the region. “The Trump administration dreamed of having a candidate here to give them leverage in the economy front,” Melo said.

AP correspondent Mauricio Savarese contributed reporting from Sao Paulo.

Over the weekend, Colombia’s first round of presidential elections delivered a stunning political upset: bombastic pro-Trump outsider lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella secured the top spot, riding a regional wave of voter demand for harsh crackdowns on organized criminal activity. De la Espriella, who captured nearly 44% of the vote, outpaced long-time polling leader progressive Senator Iván Cepeda, who finished with less than 41% of ballots cast. The two candidates will advance to a decisive runoff election scheduled for June 21, where political analysts widely expect de la Espriella to pick up support from voters who backed other conservative candidates in the opening round.

Almost immediately after Sunday’s results were tabulated, Cepeda and his political ally, sitting Colombian President Gustavo Petro, raised unsubstantiated questions about the integrity of the election process. Political analyst Sergio Guzmán noted that Cepeda faces a steep uphill battle in the runoff, framing de la Espriella’s first-round win as a reflection of a profound shift in Colombian public opinion that will be extremely difficult for the progressive candidate to reverse. “Abelardo de la Espriella won the first round. In other words, that’s a shift in public opinion that is very difficult to overcome. So now Abelardo is emerging as the likely favorite to win,” Guzmán explained.

Nicknamed “El Tigre” (The Tiger), the 47-year-old candidate has never held public office in Colombia. Before launching his presidential campaign, he built a high-profile legal career representing controversial clients including former conservative President Álvaro Uribe and Venezuelan ally of Nicolás Maduro Alex Saab, who faces U.S. criminal charges (de la Espriella stopped representing Saab roughly seven years ago). De la Espriella spent years living a luxury lifestyle in Italy, and has campaigned as an anti-establishment outsider who would align closely with former U.S. President Donald Trump and replicate El Salvador President Nayib Bukele’s controversial hardline war on gangs. The Bukele model has cut homicide rates in El Salvador but sparked widespread global allegations of systematic human rights abuses.

In a final-campaign interview with the Associated Press, de la Espriella laid out his uncompromising approach to Colombia’s long-standing narcotic and gang violence crisis: “I will wipe out narcoterrorism and those who I’ve declared a military target like cockroaches, like rats. I will unleash upon them the wrath of God never seen before.” He also pledged to construct 10 new mega-prisons to hold convicted gang members and criminal actors. De la Espriella’s rise fits into a broader political realignment across Latin America, where a growing number of candidates from Chile to Honduras have adopted the “Bukele model” as voters increasingly abandon progressive administrations that focused on addressing the root causes of violence, such as systemic youth poverty and institutional corruption.

De la Espriella has drawn support from a broad cross-section of Colombian voters. The day before the election, 64-year-old Bogotá coffee vendor Yolanda Peréz hinted she would cast her ballot for “El Tigre.” For 20-year-old first-time voter Miguel Maheca, who publicly displayed his pro-de la Espriella ballot after voting, security concerns trumped all other policy priorities: “Love isn’t what’s going to make us safe in Colombia,” he said.

Despite the candidate’s popular appeal, security experts warn that the El Salvador security model is nearly impossible to replicate in Colombia, a country more than 50 times larger than the Central American nation, with a far more fragmented landscape of competing armed groups fighting to control territory and illicit trade routes. De la Espriella’s first-round win comes amid a more aggressive U.S. diplomatic push across Latin America under the Trump administration, which has ramped up pressure on Colombia, Mexico, and Ecuador to adopt harsher anti-crime policies.

For Cepeda, the result is a major blow to his campaign and the future of the progressive movement that brought President Petro to power in 2022. Cepeda has run on a platform to continue Petro’s controversial “total peace” initiative, which seeks to end decades of conflict by negotiating formal peace agreements with remaining guerrilla factions and criminal gangs. The progressive movement emerged from widespread rejection of the hardline militarized anti-guerrilla campaign waged by former President Uribe, which was marred by the “false positives” scandal that saw Colombian security forces kill thousands of civilians and disguise them as guerrilla combatants to inflate victory counts.

Cepeda has framed his opponent as a return to Colombia’s problematic past: De la Espriella “represents a return to the paramilitary politics and drug-trafficking — a mafia-run, plutocratic and corrupt past that the country experienced during Álvaro Uribe’s two administrations,” he said Sunday.

Petro, a former rebel who made history in 2022 as Colombia’s first left-wing head of state, breaking decades of right-wing rule tied to Uribe’s political movement, saw his movement put on the defensive after Sunday’s results. Petro built his winning 2022 coalition on support from rural, Indigenous, and low-income Colombians who had long been ignored by traditional political establishments.

Renata Segura, director of the International Crisis Group’s Latin America and the Caribbean Program, wrote that the election is now de la Espriella’s to lose. She argued that Cepeda’s strategy of running exclusively on a left-wing platform was a critical error, and his ability to pivot toward broader appeal in the next five weeks will determine whether he has any chance of pulling off an upset in the runoff.

Colombia’s 2026 presidential first-round election has upended pre-vote polling expectations, as bombastic pro-Trump political outsider Abelardo de la Espriella has claimed an unexpected lead over progressive frontrunner Iván Cepeda, riding a regional wave of voter demand for hardline crackdowns on organized crime.

When final ballots were counted Sunday, de la Espriella secured nearly 44% of the vote, edging out Cepeda — the senator from incumbent president Gustavo Petro’s ruling Historic Pact coalition — who finished with less than 41%, according to official results. Cepeda had held a steady lead in public opinion surveys for months throughout the campaign, but de la Espriella surged in popularity in the final weeks of the race. The two top finishers will advance to a decisive runoff election scheduled for June 21.

Political analysts widely view de la Espriella as the early favorite heading into the runoff, noting he is positioned to pick up the bulk of support from voters who backed other conservative candidates in the first round. Sergio Guzmán, a prominent independent political analyst, called the first-round result a major public opinion shift that will be extremely hard for Cepeda to reverse. “Abelardo de la Espriella won the first round. In other words, that’s a shift in public opinion that is very difficult to overcome. So now Abelardo is emerging as the likely favorite to win,” Guzmán explained.

De la Espriella, a 47-year-old lawyer nicknamed “El Tigre” (The Tiger), has never held public office in Colombia. Before launching his presidential bid, he built a high-profile career representing controversial clients including former conservative President Álvaro Uribe and Venezuelan oligarch Alex Saab, an ally of ousted Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro who faces U.S. criminal charges. De la Espriella cut ties with Saab roughly seven years ago. Long based in Italy where he lived a luxury lifestyle, he has positioned himself as an anti-establishment outsider aligned with U.S. President Donald Trump, and has openly modeled his security agenda on El Salvador President Nayib Bukele’s controversial gang war.

In a final-week interview with the Associated Press, de la Espriella doubled down on his hardline rhetoric, promising to eliminate what he calls narcoterrorism, comparing targeted criminal leaders to pests, and vowing to build 10 new mega-prisons to house incarcerated gang members. “I will wipe out narcoterrorism and those who I’ve declared a military target like cockroaches, like rats. I will unleash upon them the wrath of God never seen before,” he said.

His rise aligns with a growing conservative shift across Latin America, where a rising number of candidates are embracing the “Bukele model” of aggressive security policy. Voters across the region have increasingly turned away from progressive leaders who focused on addressing the root causes of violence, such as youth economic exclusion and systemic corruption, amid widespread frustration with persistent criminal activity. De la Espriella’s support cuts across a wide swath of Colombian society: from long-time voters like 64-year-old Bogotá coffee server Yolanda Peréz, who said she planned to vote for “El Tigre” ahead of the election, to first-time 20-year-old voter Miguel Maheca, who said after casting his ballot that soft policy would not make Colombians safe. “Love isn’t what’s going to make us safe in Colombia,” Maheca told reporters.

While Bukele’s crackdown has reduced homicide rates in El Salvador, it has also sparked widespread international accusations of systematic human rights abuses. Experts warn the model is almost impossible to replicate in Colombia, a country more than 50 times larger than El Salvador with dozens of competing armed groups fighting for control of drug trafficking territories and local power.

The first-round result delivers a significant blow to Colombia’s sitting progressive government. Petro, a former rebel who won the 2022 presidential election to end decades of right-wing rule led by Uribe’s political faction, has made negotiating a “total peace” agreement with guerrilla groups and criminal gangs the centerpiece of his administration. Cepeda has run on a platform to continue Petro’s peace initiative, which has faced persistent headwinds and ongoing political opposition.

Late Sunday night, Cepeda and Petro both publicly questioned the integrity of the election results without presenting any evidence of widespread irregularities. Cepeda has framed his opponent as a throwback to the darker era of Uribe’s presidency, accusing de la Espriella of representing “a return to the paramilitary politics and drug-trafficking — a mafia-run, plutocratic and corrupt past that the country experienced during Álvaro Uribe’s two administrations.” On Monday, Cepeda issued a formal call for de la Espriella to participate in a series of public debates ahead of the June runoff.

Renata Segura, Latin America and Caribbean Program Director for the International Crisis Group, wrote Monday that the election is currently de la Espriella’s to lose. She argued Cepeda made a critical strategic error by focusing his campaign exclusively on mobilizing left-wing base voters, and that his ability to pivot to win over moderate and undecided voters in the next four weeks will determine whether he can still claim victory. The runoff comes as the Trump administration has ramped up U.S. pressure on Latin American governments including Colombia to escalate anti-crime and anti-drug operations, a shift that has reshaped political incentives across the region.

For nearly three decades, the rallying cry “United, we will win!” defined the unbreakable facade of Venezuela’s Chavista movement, a fiercely nationalist socialist project that weathered decades of U.S. hostility, economic collapse, and mass unrest to hold onto power. From street protests to state television broadcasts, generations of Venezuelans—young and old, party leaders and grassroots loyalists—pumped their fists to the slogan, reinforcing the coalition’s lockstep loyalty to the project and its longstanding antagonism toward Washington. But that long-touted unity has fractured dramatically, following the January U.S. military operation that resulted in the capture of longtime president Nicolás Maduro, opening deep rifts within the once-cohesive ruling bloc.

After a tightly contested first round of voting Sunday that left no candidate crossing the 50% threshold for an outright win, Colombia is set for a high-stakes June 21 presidential runoff that pitches a far-left ideological ally of the current administration against a hard-right, Trump-aligned outsider. When nearly all ballots were counted, right-wing contender Abelardo de la Espriella – a lawyer and businessman who styles himself “El Tigre” – secured first place with 43.7% of the vote, edging out left-wing senator Iván Cepeda Castro, who earned 41% of support. The result upended pre-election polling that had widely predicted Cepeda would finish ahead of his conservative challenger.

At its core, the runoff election will offer Colombian voters two starkly opposing visions for addressing the country’s decades-long internal armed conflict, which has reemerged with rising violence in recent years. Cepeda, a key ally of incumbent President Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s first left-wing head of state, brings deep firsthand experience in peace negotiations: he was a central figure in the 2016 historic peace deal between the Colombian government and the FARC guerrilla movement that led to the disarmament of thousands of rebel fighters. Today, he is widely recognized as the architect of Petro’s flagship “total peace” strategy, which prioritizes ceasefire talks and negotiated settlements with armed groups over large-scale military intervention.

The Petro administration’s approach to peace and security has become a central flashpoint of the campaign. During Petro’s term, cocaine production has reached an all-time record high, armed group membership has expanded, and border violence has spiked to its worst level in decades, displacing tens of thousands of Colombians. Critics and security analysts widely dismiss “total peace” as a failed policy, though Petro has pushed back, noting his government has seized more illegal narcotics than any prior administration. On the economic front, Colombia has seen modest growth under Petro, and the president delivered a significant increase to the national minimum wage, yet roughly one in three Colombians still lives below the poverty line. If elected, Cepeda has pledged to advance progressive economic reforms, including expanding social welfare programs and advancing land redistribution for victims of the country’s long-running internal conflict.

De la Espriella, by contrast, has built his campaign on a full-throated rejection of Petro’s peace strategy, calling instead for a harsh military crackdown on organized crime and armed groups. A self-described admirer of former U.S. President Donald Trump, he has proposed deepening security cooperation with the United States, including carrying out targeted bombings of cartel strongholds with U.S. backing, expanding the military’s domestic policing powers, and holding mass trials for alleged organized crime members. Echoing the hardline approach of El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele – whom de la Espriella has cited as a policy and even personal influence, with commentators noting the similarity of their facial hair – he has pledged to construct 10 new maximum-security mega-prisons in remote jungle regions. He has also promised to drastically cut the size of the Colombian national government.

The right-wing candidate has faced significant controversy over his professional background as a defense attorney. He previously represented high-profile clients including Alex Saab, a close associate of ousted Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro who currently faces U.S. money laundering charges, and David Murcia Guzmán, the mastermind of a multibillion-dollar pyramid scheme that defrauded thousands of Colombians. De la Espriella has framed his representation of these figures as a standard part of legal practice for defense counsel, but critics have accused him of profiting from his work for powerful criminals.

With moderate conservative senator Paloma Valencia finishing third in the first round, de la Espriella is widely seen as well-positioned to pick up the bulk of her right-leaning supporters in the runoff, putting him in a strong starting position for the second round of voting.

The election outcome will carry far-reaching implications for regional geopolitics, particularly for Colombia’s relationships with the United States and neighboring countries. In recent years, a wave of right-wing victories has swept across Latin America, with conservative candidates winning presidential elections in Ecuador, Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Honduras and El Salvador. The Trump administration, which returned to power in 2025, has pursued an aggressive muscular foreign policy in the region: it has carried out a military raid that captured Nicolás Maduro, launched strikes on alleged drug trafficking vessels in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, imposed a full oil blockade on Cuba, and earlier this year established the “Shield of the Americas”, a security alliance of right-leaning regional leaders focused on combating cartel activity.

While Petro and Trump have a history of public clashes and verbal insults over drug policy and U.S. intervention in the region, relations between the two leaders warmed following a February meeting at the White House, and anti-narcotics cooperation between the two countries has continued largely uninterrupted. Cepeda shares Petro’s anti-interventionist stance, repeatedly arguing that Colombia should not act as a “vassal state” to the U.S., while de la Espriella has made clear he seeks to strengthen security alliances with Washington and aligns ideologically with Trump. To date, Trump has not issued a formal endorsement of either candidate, a departure from his public involvement in other recent regional elections.

The runoff will also shape relations between Colombia and neighboring Ecuador, which has faced a dramatic surge in violence driven by drug trafficking that largely transits through Ecuadorian territory after leaving Colombia, the world’s largest cocaine producer. Ecuador’s conservative President Daniel Noboa has already imposed tariffs on Colombian imports, accusing Petro’s government of failing to secure their shared border. Last month, Noboa confirmed he had reached an agreement with de la Espriella to drop the tariffs if the right-wing candidate wins, in exchange for cooperation on extraditing Ecuadorean criminals hiding in Colombia and a joint crackdown on narcoterrorism. Colombia’s foreign ministry quickly condemned Noboa’s move as “deliberate interference” in its sovereign election, and Noboa’s office has not yet issued a public response to the accusation.

The entire campaign season has been marred by pervasive political violence, including drone attacks on candidates, widespread kidnappings, multiple political homicides, and the assassination of a presidential candidate at a public rally last year. Security forces deployed heavily across the country on election Sunday, with armed guards posted at polling stations to protect voters and election officials.