Colombians voted Sunday on whether to keep tolerating Gustavo Petro's leftist experiment or hand power to a hardliner who has promised to bomb cartel encampments, lock traffickers in remote megaprisons, and fumigate coca fields the way El Salvador's Nayib Bukele cleared out his country's gangs: with overwhelming force.
Abelardo de la Espriella, a lawyer and businessman known as "The Tiger," surged to the front of the race by running directly at Petro's signature policy. "Total peace," a strategy of ceasefires and dialogue with guerrilla groups and drug traffickers, gave criminal organizations the room to expand their ranks and tighten their grip on the country, analysts say.
Human rights organizations documented more than 50 massacres in Colombia this year alone. A presidential candidate was shot dead at a campaign rally last June. Drone strikes, kidnappings, and bombings shadowed the race from the start. Armed groups were at the negotiating table. They were also launching attacks.
De la Espriella told the media:
"The only peace process I believe in is one imposed by the force of arms and the laws of the republic. Under my government, any bandit who resists will be eliminated as appropriate, and if he submits, we will imprison him in a mega prison so he can pay his debt to justice as they should."
Airstrikes on trafficker encampments. Aerial fumigation of coca fields with glyphosate, which Petro halted. Maximum-security megaprisons built on the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT) model. De la Espriella has embraced comparisons to both Trump and Bukele and shows no sign of walking any of it back.
Camilo Guzmán, executive director of Libertank, a Colombian political risk and policy think tank, told reporters that de la Espriella earned his position by reading the electorate better than anyone else in the opposition.
"Ending Petro's failed 'total peace' policy that emboldened guerrillas and cartels, going after narco-trafficking with full force, and rebuilding the counter-narcotics alliance with Washington that Petro spent four years dismantling."
That alliance is in ruins.
The State Department revoked Petro's visa. The Treasury sanctioned him personally. The Justice Department opened a probe into his alleged contacts with drug traffickers. Colombia is now producing more cocaine than at any point in its history, despite Petro's claims of record seizures. A de la Espriella victory would likely flip that dynamic fast, giving Washington a willing partner on counternarcotics for the first time in years.
Iván Cepeda, Petro's handpicked successor on the Pacto Histórico ticket, wants to keep "total peace" alive, expand social programs, and protect Colombia's biodiversity, arguing that dialogue is the only durable way out of a conflict that has lasted for generations. Center-right Sen. Paloma Valencia, protégé of former President Álvaro Uribe, is calling for ground troop increases, drone surveillance, and a harder line on trafficking organizations, with backing from Colombia's traditional parties and the business community. She is running the more measured campaign. In a country this angry, that may be the problem.
An AtlasIntel poll of more than 4,500 respondents put Cepeda narrowly ahead at 38.7 percent, with de la Espriella close behind at 37.3 percent and Valencia at 14.3 percent. No candidate is expected to clear the 50 percent threshold, setting up a runoff on June 21.
Every opposition candidate defeats Cepeda head-to-head. The left's grip on Colombia may come down to whether de la Espriella or Valencia makes the final round.
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