Trump admirer’s surprise first-round win is a blow to Colombia’s traditional conservatives

Abelardo de la Espriella, a far-right lawyer and admirer of Donald Trump, won the first round of Colombia’s presidential election on Sunday, securing 43.7% of the vote. The victory, which came as a surprise to most analysts, positions the candidate for a runoff against leftwing Senator Iván Cepeda, who received 40.9% of the ballots. De la Espriella’s triumph signals a shift in the political landscape, as his success has been attributed to the collapse of the traditional conservative vote behind Paloma Valencia, who finished with just 6.9%.

The runoff on June 21 will feature a stark contrast in approaches to the country's escalating violence. De la Espriella advocates for military alliances with the United States and Israel, alongside the construction of mega-prisons, while Cepeda supports President Gustavo Petro’s "total peace" strategy of negotiating with criminal groups. Both candidates have engaged in a heated exchange of insults, with De la Espriella labeling Cepeda a "misogynist" and "lawyer for paramilitaries," while Cepeda referred to his rival as a "delinquent."

The election took place amid a resurgence of violence, with armed conflict levels reaching their highest point since the 2016 peace agreement. De la Espriella campaigned on a promise to end the decades-long conflict within 90 days, a pledge that has resonated with a segment of the electorate described by political scientists as "fed up with politics." Following the preliminary results, Petro refused to recognize the count, alleging without evidence that 800,000 additional people were included in the voter registry, a claim political scientist Nadia Jimena Pérez Guevara described as "not healthy" for Colombian democracy.