BOGOTA, Colombia — Colombia’s deeply divided electorate has produced a cliffhanger presidential runoff election, with first-time political candidate and conservative outsider Abelardo de la Espriella holding a narrow lead over progressive Iván Cepeda — a result that the ruling party’s camp has already pledged to contest in the coming days.
With 99.9% of all ballots counted by national electoral authorities, de la Espriella, a 47-year-old lawyer and business owner who holds dual Colombian-U.S. citizenship and earned an endorsement from former U.S. President Donald Trump, secured 49.7% of the vote. His opponent, sitting lawmaker Iván Cepeda and close ally of outgoing progressive President Gustavo Petro, trailed at 48.7%. Official results have not yet been certified by election officials, leaving the country’s next four-year leadership in limbo.
If de la Espriella’s lead holds, the political newcomer is expected to roll back nearly all of Petro’s core policy agenda. Most notably, he has vowed to terminate Petro’s controversial initiative to conduct parallel peace negotiations with the country’s network of illegal armed groups — an effort that has already failed to deliver tangible reductions in violence. Cepeda, by contrast, ran on a platform of continuing Petro’s peace strategy and advancing the outgoing administration’s slate of social reforms.
Addressing thousands of cheering supporters Sunday night from behind bulletproof glass in the northern Colombian city of Barranquilla, de la Espriella struck an initial conciliatory tone before shifting to a combative message. “I will govern for all Colombians,” said de la Espriella, who goes by the nickname “The Tiger.” He then turned directly to his opponent, adding, “Pack your bags and prepare to exercise the opposition. Make no mistake, Mr. Cepeda. You already know how fiercely the tiger roars.” Former President Trump celebrated the preliminary outcome on his social media platform, posting simply, “He Won, BIG!”
Speaking from the capital Bogotá after the partial count was released, Cepeda rejected the preliminary tally as “unofficial and non-binding.” His campaign announced plans to challenge results across more than 30,000 voting stations, a move that carries little historical precedent for success: no recount has ever overturned a Colombian presidential election. “We will not allow … the rollback of the social gains we have achieved,” Cepeda told his supporters. “We will not allow democracy to be violated.” Outgoing President Petro echoed that commitment, vowing to back the challenge to the preliminary outcome. The winner of the race is set to be inaugurated for a four-year term on August 7.
The entire election campaign was shaped by widespread public anxiety over a potential return to the large-scale internal armed conflict that plagued Colombia for decades. Both candidates ran on sharply divergent platforms to address ongoing violence, which has risen steadily in recent years. Current data shows illegal armed groups in Colombia now count more than 27,000 total members, and 2023 saw 14,780 homicides recorded nationwide — the highest annual total since at least 2015. The rising violence included the assassination of conservative presidential hopeful Miguel Uribe on the campaign trail.
De la Espriella has campaigned on an aggressive, hardline approach to cracking down on organized crime and drug trafficking, explicitly modeling his plan on the mega-prison strategy implemented by Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele. While Bukele’s tactics have reduced homicide rates in El Salvador, they have also drawn widespread international condemnation for systematic human rights abuses. De la Espriella has repeatedly stated he will abandon all peace talks with illegal armed groups, which he blames for the country’s ongoing instability.
Many voters who shifted their support to de la Espriella cited frustration with unmet economic promises and ongoing violence. Yolanda Hernández, a 49-year-old waste recycler who voted for Petro in the 2022 election, explained her switch this cycle: “We want change in Colombia because it’s always the same violence, always the same thing. Petro said he was going to lower the cost of services, that he was going to lower the price of food, and everything is more expensive.”
Will Freeman, a Latin American Studies fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, noted that the razor-thin result reflects that Colombia has not shifted overwhelmingly to either the left or the right, but instead remains deeply split along both ideological and regional lines. “It’s regional not just ideological polarization; or rather, the two overlapping,” Freeman explained. “Ironically, de la Espriella’s iron-fist message performed best in the core of the country, not the periphery, which bears the brunt of Colombia’s violence.”