On 31 May 2026, the first round of Colombia's presidential election put Abelardo de la Espriella, a lawyer with no electoral experience, in the lead with 43.77% of the vote (10.1 million), ahead of Iván Cepeda, the candidate backed by outgoing president Gustavo Petro, at 40.88% (9.4 million). Paloma Valencia, a figure of the traditional right, drew only 6.9% — against 3.2 million votes in the March primaries — confirming the collapse of that current. A runoff is set for 21 June.
De la Espriella openly claims foreign references: the prison policy and imagery of El Salvador's Nayib Bukele, the rolling back of the state championed by Argentina's Javier Milei, and the anti-establishment rhetoric associated with Donald Trump, whose congressional allies in the United States voiced public support. His platform includes mega-prisons, withdrawal from multilateral organizations and the eradication of coca crops.
The vote fits into a regional cycle: elected in 2022 with the country's first left-wing president, Colombia was losing its last major continental ally after a string of leftist setbacks in Bolivia, Chile and Ecuador. Beyond the numbers, the stakes touch a country that signed in 2016 the main peace accord of its recent history, after six decades of conflict.
The outcome remains disputed. Petro refused to recognize the count before midnight, accusing — without supplying evidence — a service provider of having injected 800,000 identities, and called for waiting on the official tally by the judges. Cepeda first followed that line before walking back his words within twenty-four hours.
Opposition figures denounce an authoritarian drift, while other actors consider the accusations unfounded. The runoff will largely turn on the 3.6 million orphaned voters of the eliminated candidates and on abstainers.
