In polarized Colombia, voters cast ballots for ‘lesser of two evils’
Colombian presidential candidate Abelardo de la Espriella wears a bulletproof vest when he makes public appearances. He speaks to his supporters while standing behind three panels of bulletproof glass.
He is taking precautions at a moment when political violence in Colombia is on the rise. But he is also playing to a key campaign pledge to bring an iron fist to the country’s insecurity.
When Colombia heads to the polls June 21, the region will be watching to see if the nation joins the right-wing surge across Latin America, with Chile, Honduras, and Costa Rica lurching to the political right over the past year.
Why We Wrote This
Abelardo de la Espriella has unified conservatives ahead of Colombia’s presidential runoff. But in a polarized nation, his biggest asset may be about who he is not: the incumbent.
The first-round vote May 31 was a close split between Mr. de la Espriella (43.7%) and leftist candidate Iván Cepeda (40.9%). Mr. de la Espriella, a lawyer who also holds United States and Italian citizenship, says he’ll take a zero-tolerance approach to crime and calls for an end to government peace talks with leftist rebels. Mr. Cepeda has pledged to carry forward some of the more popular social policies of outgoing President Gustavo Petro, who served as Colombia’s first leftist leader.
But in a polarized country, Mr. de la Espriella’s appeal may also lie simply in who he is not: the incumbent.
Many voters here don’t talk about the candidate they prefer, but instead the one they mistrust less or fear less. It’s in line with a bigger trend of anti-incumbency in Latin America, where voters regularly swing from supporting the political left or right to contrast whomever is governing at the moment. And given the regional history of votos castigos, or “punishment votes,” it’s perhaps little surprise that Mr. de la Espriella is polling in first place.
“He’s very detached from the political dynamic in Colombia,” says Sandra Borda, a political scientist at Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá. “That’s something that people are welcoming because there’s a lot of mistrust in the political establishment.”
“The Tiger”
Mr. de la Espriella has never held public office and is not a member of any of Colombia’s political parties. He got his name on the ballot by forming a committee last year and collecting almost 2 million signatures, meeting a requirement set for independent candidates by Colombian law.
Over the past two months, he’s managed to rally Colombian conservatives behind his campaign, displacing more experienced politicians from the largest political parties.
As Mr. de la Espriella pumps his fists in the air and warms up the crowd by asking them if they are “steadfast for the homeland,” he promises to kill criminals who don’t surrender to the government. He criticizes the current administration’s efforts to stage peace talks with rebel groups that have become more powerful in rural areas, and he says he wants the military to go after rebel leaders without restrictions.
His campaign is teeming with nationalist symbols – he greets audiences with a military salute and wears Colombia’s national soccer jersey in most appearances – and his approach resonates with many voters in a country where extortion, kidnappings, and attacks by rebel groups are on the rise. Outgoing President Petro reduced poverty in Colombia, but he has been criticized for being soft on crime. Mr. Cepeda is seen as a candidate of continuation.
“This is what we need now,” says José Hernández, a cattle rancher from Meta province, who watched Mr. de la Espriella speak at a public square in Bogotá earlier this month. He says he is forced to make monthly extortion payments to a rebel group that add up to around $700 a year.
“We need to take down the criminals” who are taking everything from us, Mr. Hernández says.
“The Tiger,” as Mr. de la Espriella calls himself, exceeded expectations in the first-round vote in May, coming in first, but falling short of the 50% required to win the election outright.
“When you look at the peace processes that the government has tried to advance over the past four years, there are no concrete results,” says Dr. Borda, who views Mr. de la Espriella’s lack of political experience as giving him a leg up within a frustrated electorate. In fact, he’s so far removed from Colombia’s political machine, he was living and practicing law in Florida before launching his campaign.
An anti-incumbent trend
Four years ago, Mr. Petro also benefitted from antiestablishment sentiment to become the nation’s first left-wing leader. He promised to take on the conservative establishment that long ruled Colombia and formed a government with representatives from social movements and labor unions.
During his time in office, he almost doubled the minimum wage, and he reformed labor laws to grant workers more overtime pay and made it harder for companies to hire employees on short-term contracts.
Those policies won him loyalty from a significant portion of voters who now back Mr. Cepeda. But Mr. Petro’s failure to tackle organized crime is tempering enthusiasm for his movement.
Over the past four years, rebel groups have expanded to dozens of municipalities in rural Colombia, where they tax legal businesses and profit from illegal mining and the drug trade. Cocaine production grew almost twofold between 2022 and 2024, according to United Nations estimates. And last year, the number of people displaced by violence doubled, reaching 235,000, according to the Red Cross.
Earlier this month President Donald Trump endorsed Mr. de la Espriella in a social media post. If he wins, that could mean a more fluid bilateral exchange of intelligence, says Jorge Restrepo, a Colombian security analyst. But he warns the candidate’s calls for a more “repressive” response to drug trafficking could hurt human rights.
Gladys Charcas, a community leader in Puerto Boyaca, has been working with the current government on a program to register the land of small farmers, but fled to Bogotá in March after receiving death threats from a drug-trafficking organization.
Even though the current government hasn’t succeeded in keeping her community safe, she says she’ll vote for Mr. Cepeda because she worries a de la Espriella victory could “embolden” right-wing groups that have historically attacked social movements.
Choosing the “lesser evil”
Mr. de la Espriella has vowed to govern for “all Colombians,” but his past work defending leaders of paramilitary groups accused of drug trafficking and human rights abuses raises doubts for some.
Andres Caro, a lawyer in Bogotá, says his hesitations over Mr. de la Espriella’s commitment to democratic rule led him to back a more moderate candidate in the first round.
But in the runoff, he is leaning toward casting his ballot for “The Tiger” because he believes the alternative, backing Mr. Cepeda, “is worse.”
For the past two years, under Mr. Petro, the Historical Pact party has pushed to rewrite Colombia’s constitution to facilitate more economic reforms. Detractors worry it is a ploy to consolidate power, similar to Venezuela two decades ago.
Mr. Cepeda initially backed the idea of changing the constitution, but his party withdrew the proposal following its defeat in the May presidential vote.
Mr. Caro says he doesn’t feel he can take Mr. Cepeda at his word because many party members, including Mr. Petro, have said changing Colombia’s constitution is a central aspiration.
Mr. de la Espriella “is the lesser evil in this election,” Mr. Caro says. “I prefer to face him under our current constitution than to elect a party bent on rewriting the rules.”