The polls point to polarization. Far-right candidate Abelardo de la Espriella surged to first place in Sunday’s Colombian presidential election, advancing to a June 21 runoff with far-left contender Iván Cepeda. The vote came amid continued violence—a leading candidate was assassinated last year—and economic upheaval in the country led by outgoing leftist President Gustavo Petro. For a look at what message Colombian voters are sending and what to expect in the runoff, we turned to our regional experts.
Click to jump to an expert analysis:
Jason Marczak: Latin America’s rightward shift may be accelerating
Kevin Whitaker: Outside factors could play a role in the runoff
María Victoria Llorente: The center has been displaced by anxieties on the political extremes
Luis Carlos Villegas: US-Colombia ties must be front and center for whichever candidate wins
Esteban Ponce de Leon: The runoff will be fought on security
Latin America’s rightward shift may be accelerating
Colombian voters sent a clear message on Sunday: The country is polarized and divided. And many voters want change. Pre-election surveys had pointed to the possibility of a three-way race, but, in the end, outsider candidate de la Espriella led throughout the vote counting and never looked back. His far-right candidacy surged in recent weeks and he bested Cepeda, the favorite of the outgoing Petro government, in Sunday’s first round by three percentage points (43.7 percent vs 40.9 percent), or approximately 670,000 votes.
De la Espriella will square off against Cepeda on June 21 in a race that is already favoring the former. Shortly after the results came in, the third-place finisher, Paloma Valencia, who underperformed compared to polling expectations, pledged her support, which tallied over 1.6 million votes, to de la Espriella. That’s about half of the three million votes for other candidates that are now up for grabs. If most of the first-round votes for her do swing to de la Espriella, then he will reach at least 50 percent and further solidify Latin America’s rightward trend across recent elections. The fourth-place finisher has yet to announce his second-round preference. As the race heats up to win over the up-for-grabs voters, many of whom backed centrist candidates in the first round, questioning election results is unlikely to translate into shoring up more support, which is likely why Cepeda reversed course on Monday to accept the results.
De la Espriella, known as “El Tigre,” has campaigned on a conservative message of law and order with his experience in business rather than politics a positive in his campaign. His hardline security posture has resonated with many Colombians. And given his strong ties to the United States, in particular Miami, de la Espriella seeks to rejuvenate the US-Colombia relationship. While Colombia has historically been one of the United States’ closest allies, the last year has seen senior-level officials, including Petro, sanctioned by the United States, with Colombia also failing to be certified in meeting its international counternarcotics obligations. Cepeda, for his part, presents himself as offering continuity with the Petro government, with a message of inclusion, peace, and justice.
Beyond the candidates, and after a violence-plagued campaign, the real winners on Sunday’s vote were the Colombian people who were able to exercise their rights with a secure and peaceful vote. That should be the Colombian state’s top priority in this heated period between electoral rounds.
—Jason Marczak is vice president and senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center.
Outside factors could play a role in the runoff
De la Espriella showed unexpected strength in the first round, and he is well positioned to win in the second round, particularly if most of the supporters of Uribista standard-bearer Valencia join her in backing de la Espriella. His campaign centered on addressing Colombia’s deteriorated security situation and correcting the chaos and incompetence of the Petro administration.
The 41 percent result for leftist ruling party candidate Cepeda was a disappointment. He promised to continue Petro’s reform agenda, including the failed “Total Peace” negotiations with criminal groups, but to carry them out more effectively. Cepeda’s lack of charisma, combined with Petro’s failures on security and health policy, will make it difficult to expand beyond his leftist base.
Troublingly, after the election both Cepeda and Petro suggested that the quick count results were flawed and called for party activists to mobilize. Cepeda has since backed down, underlining that any irregularities would not amount to fraud. This usefully lowered the temperature, but Petro has been claiming for weeks that fraud was in the offing. The ruling party questioning of the results could be interpreted by some de la Espriella voters as threatening violence.
De la Espriella has emphasized his commitment to work closely with the United States, including renewing bilateral security and justice relationships. On the economic front, Petro’s economic and security policies—which Cepeda has pledged to continue—have suppressed new foreign investment. De la Espriella campaigned on providing an attractive environment for foreign investors, including in the hydrocarbons sector. While Colombia is not blessed with massive hydrocarbon reserves, Petro’s hostility to the sector has been notable. Finally, whoever wins later this month will face a large fiscal deficit, fed by Petro government handouts.
While the electoral table seems set—rightist change vs leftist continuation—outside factors could play a role. Chief among them would be a comment from US President Donald Trump. De la Espriella has openly courted a US endorsement throughout the campaign, but Trump has thus far wisely refused to weigh in.
—Kevin Whitaker is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center. He was US ambassador to Colombia from 2014 to 2019.
The center has been displaced by anxieties on the political extremes
The first round confirmed the extreme polarization of this electorate, though not in a wholly unexpected way. We have had a more centrist and moderate way of government in Colombia for most of the past few decades, and it was related to the fact that we had a common challenge, which was the internal armed conflict. Colombians aligned around that issue. And now, though we still have huge security challenges, our challenge after the 2016 peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) is not the internal armed conflict.
One clear message from the first round is that anti-Petro sentiment is aligned behind de la Espriella. These results confirm a strengthening of conservative values among a large segment of the electorate, including anti-communism, social order, and family and religious values. At the same time, this pattern is far from uniform across the country. The electoral map one again revealed a divide between the country’s interior, where de la Espriella performed strongest, and the peripheral regions, where the left-wing Pacto Historico largely maintained its support.
Voter turnout was also significant, reaching nearly 58 percent, about three percentage points higher than four years ago. This should be interpreted as a sign of democratic resilience in Colombia, but it also shows deep political anxiety. On the one side, voters were convinced that Cepeda’s victory would entrench a left-wing political project leading Colombia toward a Venezuela-style catastrophe. On the other side, voters were deeply concerned that a de la Espriella presidency would dismantle hard-won progressive gains and solidify a hardline approach to politics. That is the main change in the Colombian electorate. The center has been completely displaced by these two anxieties in the right and in the left.
—María Victoria Llorente is a member of the Atlantic Council’s US-Colombia Strategic Alignment Coalition and executive director of Fundación Ideas para la Paz.
US-Colombia ties must be front and center for whichever candidate wins
Once again, Colombian democracy showed that it is alive. Voters showed their own judgment in evaluating the country’s situation and possible solutions ahead. An “outsider” won the first round with a clear majority of votes and growing enthusiasm across society. But that enthusiasm does not hide the populist ingredient in his campaign, his gray past, or the major unknowns about his knowledge of the unresolved public policy affairs that the next government will need to address.
Security cannot be restored by giving an order. It is built over years through an understanding of the armed forces and their idiosyncrasies, and by strengthening their budget, personnel, intelligence, and mobility. Those elements require time and knowledge, both of which are scarce, as well as international cooperation, which in turn derives from a political context that must be rebuilt.
Other issues that directly affect people, such as health care, are highly urgent, complex, and costly in terms of public spending. His team for governing is still unknown. For now, de la Espriella has a relationship with the United States marked by collaboration with the US Drug Enforcement Administration and Department of Justice, stemming from his work as a criminal defense attorney. No other experience is visible in financial, commercial, military, or diplomatic bilateral cooperation. Washington has an ally, without a doubt, but the winner does not seem to know very well what for. That however, does seem clear in Washington.
Under de la Espriella, public finances, already in crisis, would go into the hands of someone who knows the issue well, the vice-presidential candidate Jose Manuel Restrepo. If Cepeda were to win, no fiscal way out is visible. The relationship with Venezuela, which is vital, depends on the US relationship with that country. If the government becomes an accomplice of Delcy Rodríguez or gets caught up on ideological considerations, it would lose a golden opportunity to build security along the border and become providers in Venezuela’s reconstruction.
The first-round winner is alone. He will need to negotiate to win the second round, but without Congress, governors, mayors, parties, or media, the question is: with whom? Neither Cepeda nor de la Espriella will have an easy time securing additional support.
There is an incipient winner, de la Espriella; a second-place finisher, Cepeda, who, like Petro, has chosen to try to disqualify the results; and two million votes whose destination remains unknown. The language since the start of the campaign has been aggressive and lacking in democratic manners, with little regard for preserving public peace. If that tone continues, additional and more widespread violence should not be ruled out. Hopefully, Trump will not take sides publicly.
By September, whoever wins must formulate, in agreement with the United States, an anti-drug plan that can restore confidence in the future and reverse decertification. The winner must also develop a plan of his own to try to rebuild some bipartisan support in the US Congress ahead of the uncertain legislative elections in November. The alternative is to opt for confrontation with Washington, a path that leads to Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua.
The role of the electoral institutions was once again impeccable, as confirmed by thousands of international observers.
—Luis Carlos Villegas is a member of the Atlantic Council’s US-Colombia Strategic Alignment Coalition. He served as Colombian minister of national defense from 2015 to 2018 and as ambassador of Colombia to the United States from November 2013 to June 2015.
The runoff will be fought on security
The first-round results reflected Colombia’s highly polarized political environment, including its contentious information landscape. During the campaign, polarizing narratives focused heavily on security issues, public concerns over violence and governance, claims of electoral irregularities (including allegations raised by Petro) and concerns regarding the role of public media in the electoral process. Similar concerns had been raised earlier, during the March 8 legislative elections, when the European Union Election Observation Mission noted that public media coverage appeared to favor government-aligned political actors.
The first-round results suggest that security and governance concerns have become the primary drivers of voter behavior. De la Espriella’s strong performance indicates that a significant share of the electorate is receptive to a tougher approach toward crime, armed groups, and narcotrafficking. At the same time, Cepeda’s competitiveness demonstrates that support for the government’s political project is still strong, reinforcing the idea that voters are divided over different approaches to Colombia’s security and economic issues.
Looking ahead to the runoff, the information environment is likely to become even more polarized. Narratives about electoral integrity, media bias, and public security are expected to intensify as both campaigns seek to mobilize supporters and win over undecided voters. For Washington, the election will be a key indicator of whether Colombia remains aligned with a regional trend toward tougher security policies and closer cooperation on counternarcotics, migration, and organized crime, or whether it reinforces continuity with the current administration’s priorities.
—Esteban Ponce de León is a resident fellow at the Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) of the Atlantic Council, specializing in open-source research, online disinformation, and influence operations.