Petro’s rival seeks reply to US-backed pressure

In Colombia’s presidential runoff, Iván Cepeda, the Pacto Histórico candidate, frames the election as a test of sovereignty against far-right forces tied—he says—to narco-paramilitary networks and to U.S. political influence. Cepeda, a longtime human rights ad

When Colombia’s political pendulum finally turned left. it did so after decades of a right-wing ruling class that. in its view. relied on U.S. support to fight armed left-wing rebels, coca farmers, and civilians. That long arrangement is exactly what Iván Cepeda says the country can’t afford to backslide into.

Cepeda is now positioned to challenge far-right populist candidate Abelardo de la Espriella in a runoff set for Sunday. June 21. after both advanced from the first round held on May 31. Cepeda finished second behind de la Espriella. and the stakes. he argues. are whether Colombia treats its turn toward the progressive project of former guerrilla leader Gustavo Petro as a fluke—or keeps moving toward what he calls a more equal. dignified. and independent future.

Petro’s presidency—captured four years ago by the Pacto Histórico movement—reshaped Colombian politics. Since taking office. Petro has led what Cepeda and his allies describe as a pragmatic. social-democratic administration that raised the minimum wage. introduced pro-worker labor reforms. oversaw land redistribution. increased spending on public education. and brought down poverty rates. Petro also took what his campaign calls principled stances against Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip. including breaking relations with Israel and drawing the ire of Donald Trump. Trump. in turn. canceled Petro’s visa to the United States last year after Petro attended a pro-Palestine rally in Manhattan.

That tension spilled into diplomacy just days ago. A scheduled meeting in New York between Petro and Mayor Zohran Mamdani was spiked after pressure from the Trump administration, according to Cepeda’s argument that outside power is moving to constrain Colombia’s political choices.

Facing that environment, Pacto Histórico is pursuing a continuity strategy after Petro was made constitutionally ineligible to run again. The coalition has selected Senator Iván Cepeda as its candidate. casting him as a figure shaped by decades of human rights advocacy—work he links directly to the history of state violence against the left. Cepeda has said his career has focused on justice for victims of the state-sponsored extermination of thousands of leaders of the left-wing alliance Unión Patriótica. including his father. Senator Manuel Cepeda. who was gunned down in 1994.

In a campaign message that drew a simple, street-level verdict, a truck driver near Bogotá told a reporter that “He wants to help the common people, so the rich aren’t always calling the shots.”

Cepeda’s own pitch leans hard into sovereignty, coalition-building, and confrontation with the far right. He portrays the current moment as a fight not just against an opponent. but against what he describes as fascist features in Colombia and abroad. He tells voters that he comes from a political tradition rooted in Colombia’s long history of struggle and that Pacto Histórico is the result of an accumulation of left-wing currents and social movements over the last century. including what he describes as resistance sustained under “intense criminal practices and persecution.” He adds that Colombia has witnessed genocides “in the plural. ” including against indigenous peoples and political formations.

His approach to defeating the opposition, he says, is grounded in pluralistic alliances. He argues that rather than ruling out dialogue with the center—or even parts of the right—his coalition needs programmatic identities that can align broad forces. He also says the center. under conditions of “planetary crises” he attributes to neoliberalism. seeks solutions he describes as unfeasible. with problems like the climate crisis offering no room for neutrality.

Under the pressure of governing. Cepeda says some changes can be made without Congress. while others require passing laws or constitutional reforms. He points to controversy surrounding a proposed constituent assembly—an issue he says he has addressed by choosing a different route as a candidate: seeking a national agreement built on dialogue. He describes it as an initial phase centered on national dialogue. intended to reach consensus and respect decisions that can translate into laws. constitutional reforms. or executive decisions.

He also lays out three urgent problems he says the administration must confront in its first hundred days if it wants to avoid a deeper breakdown. The first is the crisis of Colombia’s healthcare system. which he says cannot wait because “it is collapsing. ” which he attributes to privatization and corruption. The second is a crisis tied to the El Niño phenomenon and prolonged drought. which he links to energy problems because Colombia’s electricity

supply relies on large dams and reservoir levels are already dropping. The third is a fiscal deficit that, Cepeda says, is tied to the public finances inherited from right-wing policies. He says those policies left the country with “an immense debt” because they avoided collecting a specific tax—the gasoline tax—to make a policy he calls “supremely unfair” to the population “tolerable.” He adds that his government settled the tax debt. leaving the country with what

he describes as an “exorbitant” fiscal situation and grave fiscal crisis.

In this campaign, Cepeda’s argument about accountability is also where his message collides with his opponent’s biography. During the final stretch of the electoral process. Cepeda says his campaign filed a criminal complaint on Thursday with Colombia’s attorney general and the International Criminal Court against Abelardo de la Espriella for alleged ties to narco-paramilitary groups.

Cepeda’s case is sweeping. He says de la Espriella has ties to the U.S. far right and is an associate of María Elvira Salazar. a far-right Republican in Florida. and is close to Marco Rubio and to President Trump’s administration. Cepeda also says de la Espriella’s law firm has for years been based in Miami and that the litigation he handled there involved professional services for imprisoned drug traffickers who were either extradited to the United States or ended up there under other circumstances. Cepeda frames this as proximity to agencies like the DEA and “very likely” the CIA.

He says the complaint began by documenting what he calls an early chapter of de la Espriella’s life: when. as a young lawyer fresh out of Sergio Arboleda University. de la Espriella established an organization called Fundación Iniciativas por la Paz. Cepeda says he believes it became a vehicle for paramilitaries to capture financial resources—funding themselves while also securing judicial favors. To support his claims. Cepeda points to multiple Colombian justice and truth-telling forums tied to the 2016 peace accords with FARC. including the Truth Commission (he says it was in session until recently). the Justice and Peace System. and the Special Jurisdiction for Peace. He says paramilitary leaders and individuals connected to paramilitary groups and drug trafficking presented testimonies there. and that prosecutors and ordinary justice investigations have helped build what he describes as six major testimonies compiled on Thursday.

Cepeda says those testimonies indicate de la Espriella acted as a legal operative who may have been part of a paramilitary or narco-paramilitary structure. with a role that involved public relations and securing judicial favors. allegedly by bribing politicians and judicial officials to benefit paramilitary leaders. He says he has presented evidence of financial ties and specific tasks attributed to de la Espriella. And he says this only covers the time he describes as when the opponent was a young lawyer. adding. “We’re going to continue to reveal further details in the coming days. ” and that “There will be others” beyond this first complaint.

The campaign trail also keeps returning to the question of how the United States is shaping Colombia’s political space. Cepeda dismisses the idea that U.S. influence can be justified, arguing it violates autonomy and sovereignty. He says President Petro—“our head of state”—can meet with whomever he deems necessary. including with New York’s mayor. Zohran Mamdani.

Cepeda ties Petro’s diplomatic posture to specific positions. He lists Petro’s stance on environmental defense and the climate crisis. his call for an energy transition that abandons an economy centered primarily on oil. and his defense of humanity’s sanctuaries like the Amazon rainforest. He also points to Petro’s position regarding the “genocide in Gaza” and Netanyahu’s government. and he describes Petro as a leader in pursuing peace.

Cepeda argues that if pressure really did stop the Petro–Mamdani meeting. it would be because both leaders can generate political ideas and purpose. He says the far right operates with relative synchronization on a global scale. copying and adapting schemes used elsewhere. including what he attributes to Nayib Bukele and Javier Milei in economic matters. while progressives move more slowly. He says the far right wants the left isolated enough that it fails to establish shared goals for shared problems.

What changes, Cepeda says, is the degree of mobilization inside Colombia. He points to an increase in organization and public awareness during Petro’s term. saying that popular base has grown in “these years.” In a pitch to voters worried about a return to austerity. he says his administration will give social movements a more prominent role—not only via representation. but through mechanisms for popular decision-making and the chance for movements to engage directly with the state without losing autonomy.

He then draws a sharp line between two kinds of austerity. He says neoliberal austerity—linked to the far right—means tightening “the people’s belts” and imposing harsher conditions while the government keeps more resources or opportunities. and often involves doing away with the state’s social functions. His alternative is “republican austerity,” a concept he attributes to Morena in Mexico. In this definition. the state itself should be austere: public spending on government officials should be kept moderate. and savings should go to the people through social spending. rather than waste. corruption. and expenditures he calls unnecessary.

Whether that message carries the day in a runoff is now the country’s central question. In Cepeda’s framing. the choice is not just between two candidates. but between a path he credits with changes under Petro—minimum wage hikes. labor reforms. land redistribution. expanded education spending. and poverty reduction—and a return to a violent and unequal status quo he says Colombia endured when right-wing power was sustained with massive U.S. military aid.

As voters prepare to vote again on June 21, Cepeda’s campaign is betting that the memory of Petro’s first coalition in power—alongside the bruising conflicts with both domestic opposition and the Trump administration—will weigh more heavily than any argument that the left’s turn was temporary.

Colombia election Iván Cepeda Pacto Histórico Gustavo Petro Abelardo de la Espriella Zohran Mamdani Donald Trump U.S.-Colombia relations Gaza International Criminal Court narco-paramilitary ties healthcare crisis El Niño drought fiscal deficit gasoline tax