Pro-Trump candidate pulls ahead in Colombia presidential vote as ruling
party sows doubt in results
[June 01, 2026]
By MEGAN JANETSKY and ASTRID SUÁREZ
BOGOTÁ, Colombia (AP) — Tough-on-crime outsider Aberaldo de la Espriella
took the lead in Colombia's presidential race in the first round of
voting Sunday night, setting up a runoff with Iván Cepeda, an ally of
Colombia’s outgoing President Gustavo Petro who questioned the results
of the election.
With no candidate taking an outright majority of the vote, the election
will head to a second round in June.
But Cepeda and Petro sowed doubt in the results of the first round,
claiming without evidence that hundreds of thousands of votes were
manipulated and that foreign actors manipulated the results of the
election.
Cepeda said he was waiting for electoral authorities to scrutinize the
results before accepting the election.
“Only when the vote-counting commissions have fully clarified what
happened will we comment on tonight’s results,” Cepeda said, though he
acknowledged the vote was likely going to a second round.
Cepeda won 41% of the vote, while de la Espriella won 44% of the votes,
with 99.98% of the results counted by electoral authorities.
Cepeda is a progressive senator who has promised to carry on a fraught
plan to achieve “total peace" by negotiating peace pacts with guerrillas
and criminal gangs. He was consistently leading polls in the run up to
the Sunday vote, but in the weeks leading up to the election de la
Espriella rapidly gained support with a promise that he would crack down
on armed groups.
The neck-and-neck results likely spell trouble for Cepeda in the run-off
election, as de la Espriella is expected to scoop up support from voters
who threw their support behind another conservative candidate in the
first round.
De la Espriella — a newcomer known as El Tigre, or “The Tiger” — has
sought to portray himself as a supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump.
“Let the United States of America and democratic parties monitor this
runoff election. I will lead this battle; I will be Colombia’s best
warrior," de la Espriella said in an impassioned speech Sunday night,
pounding his chest behind bullet-proof glass in front of supporters.
Colombian voters are weighing peace deals or a crackdown
Voters across Latin America are increasingly ditching leaders that
pitched progressive policies aimed at addressing the root issues of
conflict, such as lack of opportunities for young people and corruption.
Instead, voters have increasingly turned to candidates promising
heavy-handed security crackdowns.
The polarized vote comes as the Trump administration is playing a more
aggressive role in Latin America than any U.S. government in decades,
placing mounting pressure on countries like Colombia, Mexico, and
Ecuador to crack down on crime.
The election has also underscored two sharply diverging visions for the
future of peace in a country marked by years of conflict.
On one side, Cepeda has promised to continue Petro’s progressive agenda
and a largely failed effort to negotiate peace pacts with armed groups,
following a plan that’s likely to sharply contrast with Trump’s vision
for Latin America.
On the other side, de la Espriella has promised to fiercely crack down
on criminal groups and build 10 mega-prisons, echoing the war on gangs
policy of El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, which has driven down
homicide rates but fueled accusations of human rights abuses.
“Today’s election isn’t just important for us, it’s important for all of
Latin America,” said Juan Acevedo, a 62-year-old sociologist walking out
of a voting station in Colombia’s capital on Sunday morning. “Whoever
wins here will suggest to the region if progressive policies will
continue or if things are going to return to the right.”
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Presidential candidate Abelardo de la Espriella of the Defenders of
the Motherland movement salutes after voting during the presidential
election in Barranquilla, Colombia, Sunday, May 31, 2026. (AP
Photo/Fernando Vergara)
Vote is seen as a referendum on Petro
The election — 10 years after Colombia signed an historic peace pact
with guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC —
as seen as a referendum on Petro’s policies.
The deal a decade ago had offered hope to break the nation’s vicious
cycle of fighting between rebel groups and the government. But violence
has since roared back, in part because armed groups have taken advantage
of peace negotiations with Petro's government to make territorial gains.
That came to a head in the lead-up to the election. Criminal groups have
increasingly launched drone strikes, armed attacks have plagued the race
and last June, 39-year-old politician and presidential hopeful Miguel
Uribe Turbay was fatally shot at a political rally. Still, Cepeda and
Petro have maintained strong support among many because of progressive
policies pushed forward under Petro, such as boosting the minimum wage.
Both de la Espriella and Valencia have touted their affinity for Trump,
though Valencia’s electoral loss dealt another blow to a once powerful
political current known as Uribismo.
Colombians are divided on the way forward
Maria Eugenia, a 57-year-old seamstress on Friday in downtown Bogotá,
Colombia's capital, said she welcomed an all-out offensive on an
expanding slate of criminal groups, regardless of the human cost.
While she approved of Petro’s pushes to improve the country's medical
infrastructure, she said she was voting for de la Espriella because
violence in rural areas of the country has gotten out of hand. She said
negotiating peace pacts was effectively rewarding armed groups.
“Of course, whenever you come down with a heavy hand, there’s always
going to be debate,” she said. “But some people are going to have to
fall to clean up what needs to be cleaned up.”
Others, like Acevedo, the sociologist, said a security crackdown such as
the one promoted by de la Espriella meant a return to past military
campaigns that he said only reinforced Colombia's cycle of violence.
He said he supports Cepeda, adding that while the government hasn't done
a perfect job — failing to pass ambitious reforms and follow through on
promises to reduce violence — it was better to continue pushing forward
with their political coalition's efforts to take a different approach in
addressing the country's violence.
He added that his main critique of Petro's administration was the power
grabs made by criminal groups as they negotiated with the government. He
said he hoped that if Cepeda won, he would strike a better balance
between negotiating peace and maintaining control over those groups.
“We're a country that has lived through 60 years of conflict,” Acevedo
said. “The danger here is that we return to the times where everyone is
saying that the only way to solve our problems is with bullets and more
war.”
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