Colombia presidential – Colombians vote Sunday in a presidential runoff between far-right outsider Abelardo de la Espriella—Trump-backed and promising mega prisons—and leftist senator Iván Cepeda, who seeks to preserve President Gustavo Petro’s social agenda while shifting security s
By the time Colombians return to the polls Sunday, the race will already feel like a referendum on what kind of country comes next.
On one side is Abelardo de la Espriella. a far-right outsider who calls himself “the Tiger. ” surged in May’s first round with 43.74% of the vote. and now enters a runoff with Donald Trump’s “complete and total” backing. On the other is Iván Cepeda. a leftist senator from the ruling Historic Pact coalition backed by President Gustavo Petro. who finished second with just under 41% and is trying to turn Petro’s remaining support into a governing mandate.
Neither candidate won a majority in the first round. so the question now is direct: security or peace—hard force or a negotiated path that admits “Total Peace” has fallen short. For many voters, it is not an abstract debate. Colombia is coming off a year of escalating violence. a health reform the Petro government failed to implement. and a political center that has collapsed into a more volatile fight.
De la Espriella’s momentum began in May. when he qualified for the ballot through citizen signatures rather than a major party. He has run on spectacle—recording music. marketing his own rum brand. and using AI-generated content to reach audiences on social media—and a political analyst. Miguel Luján. said that showmanship was undoubtedly a factor in his lead.
Behind the performance is a hard line on crime and corruption. De la Espriella, a dual Colombian-U.S. citizen, favors an “iron fist” approach. He has promised mega prisons for Colombia’s criminal leaders. pointing to El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele as a model. His campaign also backs a free-market economic agenda: a smaller state. lower taxes. and resource extraction framed as the route to restoring order and growth.
His biography is part of the attraction for supporters and a flashpoint for critics. Before politics. he was a high-profile criminal defense lawyer who built his career defending several controversial clients. including Alex Saab. described as the alleged financier and close ally of Venezuela’s ousted strongman Nicolas Maduro.
De la Espriella also leans into culture war politics. He has cast himself as a defender of the “traditional family” while opposing abortion, adoption by same-sex couples, and “gender-ideology.” He has said he would govern through emergency decrees to act fast against crime.
Just before the runoff, Trump’s support added a new layer of urgency to the campaign’s international stakes. Shortly after the first-round election. Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social that he gave de la Espriella his “complete and total” backing. citing “tremendous accomplishments in life” and his “political support for me. personally.” De la Espriella has also said he is confident he can fully restore diplomatic relations with the United States to jointly confront Colombia’s security crisis.
Cepeda, by contrast, is trying to mobilize the existing base of Petro’s coalition rather than broaden beyond it. He defines himself as a humanist shaped by decades of human rights work. built after his family spent years in exile in Europe. He is the son of an assassinated senator for Patriotic Union—described as a left-wing party formed in the 1980s during a peace process involving the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. known by the acronym the FARC. and the Communist Party.
In the Senate, Cepeda’s campaign has sought to turn his rival into a symbol of a political reversal. He has cast de la Espriella as a “return to the past,” and said his counterpart’s base represents the “fascist far right.”
The senator’s campaign centers on inequality, deepening agrarian reform, and tackling corruption. He has criticized decades of U.S.-backed counternarcotics policy and opposed military intervention in Latin America, reflecting a more skeptical view of Washington’s regional security agenda.
Cepeda also drew a boundary around his own ambition. In an interview with CNN in late May, he ruled out perpetuating himself in power, saying four years is enough and that he “firmly believes in democratic rotation.”
At the same time. he has offered a complicated promise: preserve parts of Petro’s social agenda while changing how the government approaches security. He said Colombia faces “immense challenges. ” and that any talks with armed groups must produce “clear results.” He has acknowledged that “Total Peace” has fallen short.
That admission lands because of what many Colombians see on the streets and in the morgues.
Petro launched his 2022 “Total Peace” policy to address Colombia’s long-running internal armed conflict. where dissident factions. guerrilla groups. and criminal organizations compete for territorial control. Nearly four years into Petro’s presidency. security analyst and retired Colombian Army colonel Luis Villamarín said Colombians are seeing little evidence the strategy delivered the security gains it promised. “What we see is not less war. It is the same war, divided among more groups,” he said.
The conflict has grown more fragmented since the landmark 2016 peace deal. The International Committee of the Red Cross said 2025 was the worst year for civilians in a decade. with more than 900 people killed or wounded by explosive devices. And last August. the assassination of center-right presidential candidate Miguel Uribe Turbay while he was holding a rally in the capital Bogotá sent shivers through the country—becoming a symbol of Petro’s shortcomings in fighting crime.
For de la Espriella, the resurgence of violence is proof that Colombia needs a harder military approach. For Cepeda, negotiations still matter, even as he argues the conflict is too dispersed to solve by force alone.
Their divergence shows up in their stated plans. De la Espriella has called for aggressive military tactics against armed groups. including a controversial bombing campaign coordinated with the United States. He has also proposed banning imports of precursor materials used to make fentanyl—part of what he calls a “Plan Colombia 2.0”—and creating a specialized task force to capture extortion gang leaders.
Cepeda says militarizing its way out is not the answer. He has offered a middle approach that defends dialogue, but insists on stronger enforcement and visible results. He also pledged to draw a “red line” against any negotiations with groups that continue assassinating social leaders. while telling CNN that talks must produce “clear results. ” even as he offered few specifics on how he would enforce that standard.
Security isn’t the only worry pushing voters toward change. Analysts indicate anxiety has also shifted toward the state of the health system after the Petro government failed to implement a public health reform.
And then there is Venezuela. hanging over the race in a way that makes the political stakes feel personal for people who see a neighbor’s collapse as a warning sign. Political scientist Alejo Vargas. a professor at the National University of Colombia. said many Colombians fear that a second leftist government could push the country toward Venezuela’s fate. That worry has sharpened by Petro’s outreach to Caracas, which the opposition has condemned.
The election itself has not lacked drama. After concerns about preliminary results in the first round were raised alongside Petro, Cepeda accepted the outcome. Electoral authorities and international observers have repeatedly defended the integrity of the process.
Last week, a lawmaker triggered a firestorm with a legally unviable attempt to suspend Petro until after the election. Analysts say Petro has become a central player in the runoff, attacking de la Espriella’s campaign while promoting Cepeda.
Outside the core fight, political calculations have accelerated quickly in de la Espriella’s favor. Paloma Valencia, who finished a distant third with under 7%, threw her support to him within hours of the result. Former President Álvaro Uribe also backed him.
Cepeda’s path is steeper. Analysts broadly agree he has less room to grow than his rival, because his campaign has been built on mobilizing Petro’s existing base rather than reaching beyond it.
There is a deeper shift underneath both campaigns—one reflected even in the way Colombians talk about politics now. “More than polarization. what we’re seeing is a broadening of the political landscape. ” Sandra Borda. a political scientist at the Universidad de los Andes. told CNN. “The peace process opened a lot of ground for the left. To the same degree, it inevitably (opened) ground to the right.”.
Sunday’s runoff will decide not only who wins the presidency. but which story Colombia believes about survival: that order can be forced into place through mega prisons. emergency decrees. and military pressure—or that the fight requires dialogue. enforcement. and results that can withstand the violence already breaking the country apart.
For voters weighing those options, the timing feels relentless. They will cast ballots as Colombia’s conflict remains fragmented. its civilian toll has reached alarming levels. and Washington’s relationship with Bogotá now hangs on a question Americans have been watching closely: will Colombia move closer to Trump’s security model. or chart a different course while still trying to prevent the promises of peace from collapsing again into war.
Colombia presidential runoff Abelardo de la Espriella Iván Cepeda Gustavo Petro Trump backing mega prisons Total Peace peace negotiations U.S. relationship Colombia violence