Colombia flirts with the right as Trump-backed candidate ‘the Tiger’ leads into runoff

By Max Feliu, CNN

(CNN) — Colombians return to the polls Sunday for a presidential runoff between a far-right firebrand who calls himself “the Tiger” and a left-wing senator from the ruling party, in a contest that reflects sharply different visions for the country and could redefine Bogotá’s relationship with the United States.

Sunday’s election comes after the strong showing by the far-right outsider, Abelardo de la Espriella, in the first round of voting in May, where he won 43.74% of the vote. The leftist candidate Iván Cepeda from ruling Historic Pact coalition, who is backed by Colombian President Gustavo Petro, came in second place with just under 41% of the ballots.

Neither gained the majority needed to win outright and are facing each other in the second-round vote.

Shortly after the election, Donald Trump gave his “complete and total” backing to de la Espriella, due to his “tremendous accomplishments in life, and his political support for me, personally,” the US president wrote on Truth Social.

The election comes at a moment of mounting political tension and polarization in the country, hastened by the collapse of the political center and a rise in political violence, experts say.

Who are the candidates?

De la Espriella has run a campaign built on spectacle. He has recorded music, marketed his own rum brand, and has relied on AI-generated content to connect with audiences on social media. Political analyst Miguel Luján told CNN that de la Espriella’s showmanship was undoubtedly a factor in his lead in the first-round vote.

A dual Colombian-US citizen, de la Espriella espouses an “iron fist” approach to crime and corruption. He’s spoken favorably of Trump’s policies and vowed to build mega prisons for Colombia’s criminal leaders in a similar vein to El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele. His campaign also advocates for a free-market economic agenda, casting a smaller state, lower taxes and resource extraction as the route to restoring order and growth.

Before entering politics, he was a high-profile criminal defense lawyer who built his career defending several controversial clients, including Alex Saab, the alleged financier and close ally of Venezuela’s ousted strongman Nicolas Maduro.

The 47-year-old has never held elected office and qualified for the ballot through citizen signatures rather than a major party.

De la Espriella has run on a culture war platform, casting himself as a defender of the “traditional family,” while his campaign has opposed abortion, adoption by same-sex couples, and “gender-ideology.” He has also said he would govern through emergency decrees to act fast against crime.

In an interview with CNN last month, the far-right candidate highlighted his ties to like-minded political circles in Washington and said he was confident he could fully restore diplomatic relations with the United States to jointly confront Colombia’s security crisis.

His rival, Iván Cepeda, aims to mobilize Petro’s existing following rather than courting voters beyond it. He is the son of an assassinated senator for Patriotic Union – a left-wing party formed in the 1980s during a peace process involving the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known by the acronym the FARC, and the Communist Party. Cepeda and his family spent years in exile in Europe, where he built a career as a human-rights advocate before entering the Senate.

The senator earned more first round votes than Petro won in 2022 – but fell short of the decisive victory the government had hoped for. He has cast de la Espriella as a “return to the past,” saying that his counterpart’s base represents the “fascist far right.”

He has centered his campaign on fighting inequality, deepening agrarian reform and tackling corruption. He has also criticized decades of US-backed counternarcotics policy and opposed military intervention in Latin America, reflecting a more skeptical view of Washington’s regional security agenda.

Cepeda defines himself as a humanist shaped by decades of human rights work. In an interview with CNN in late May, he ruled out perpetuating himself in power, saying four years is enough and that he “firmly believes in democratic rotation.”

Cepeda also said he would preserve parts of Petro’s social agenda, while signaling he would seek to change the government’s security strategy and renew struggles to combat corruption after a series of scandals marred the outgoing government. He said Colombia faced “immense challenges” and that any talks with armed groups must produce “clear results.”

What are the main issues?

Petro, who is constitutionally barred from seeking reelection, launched his 2022 “Total Peace” policy to address Colombia’s long-running internal armed conflict which has seen dissident factions, guerrilla groups and criminal organizations compete for territorial control.

Luis Villamarín, a retired Colombian Army colonel and security analyst, said nearly four years into Petro’s presidency, Colombians are seeing little evidence that the strategy has delivered the security gains it promised — a failure that is now shaping the presidential race.

“What we see is not less war. It is the same war, divided among more groups,” he said.

Since the landmark 2016 peace deal, Colombia’s conflict has grown more fragmented. The International Committee of the Red Cross said 2025 was the worst year for civilians in a decade, with more than 900 people killed or wounded by explosive devices. The assassination of the center-right presidential candidate Miguel Uribe Turbay last August while he was holding a rally in the capital Bogotá, sent shivers through the country, becoming a symbol of Petro’s shortcoming when it comes to fighting crime.

For de la Espriella, the resurgence of violence is proof that Colombia needs to return to a harder military approach. Cepeda, on the other hand, has argued that negotiations remain necessary in a conflict too dispersed to solve by force alone, though he acknowledges that “Total Peace” has fallen short.

De la Espriella has called for using aggressive military tactics against armed groups, including a controversial bombing campaign in coordination with the United States, banning imports of precursor materials used to make fentanyl — part of what he calls a “Plan Colombia 2.0” — and creating a specialized task force to capture extortion gang leaders.

Cepeda says Colombia cannot simply militarize its way out of a conflict and has offered a middle approach of defending dialogue, calling for stronger enforcement and more visible results. He has pledged to draw a “red line” against any negotiations with groups that continue assassinating social leaders, and told CNN that talks must produce “clear results” — though he has offered few specifics on how he would enforce that standard.

Security is not the only thing on voters’ minds. Analysts indicate that Colombians’ anxieties have moved toward the state of the health system after the Petro government failed to implement a public health reform.

Venezuela hangs over the race as well. Political scientist Alejo Vargas, a professor at the National University of Colombia, told CNN that the crisis next door has left many Colombians fearful that a second leftist government could push the country toward its neighbor’s fate — a worry sharpened by Petro’s outreach to Caracas, which the opposition has condemned.

What to expect on Sunday?

The election has not been lacking in drama. After initially raising concerns about preliminary results in the first round alongside Petro, Cepeda accepted the outcome. Electoral authorities and international observers have repeatedly defended the integrity of the process.

Last week, a lawmaker triggered a firestorm with her legally unviable attempt to suspend Petro until after the election. Petro has become a central player in the runoff, attacking de la Espriella campaign while promoting Cepeda, analysts say.

De la Espriella, nonetheless, heads into the second round with both momentum and arithmetic on his side. His first-round total already sat within reach of a majority, and the conservative bloc has moved quickly to consolidate behind him. Paloma Valencia, who finished a distant third with under 7%, threw her support to him within hours of the result, as did former President Álvaro Uribe.

Cepeda’s path is steeper. Analysts broadly agree he has less room to grow than his rival, having run a campaign built on mobilizing Petro’s existing base rather than reaching beyond it.

Regardless of the result, the election has already redrawn Colombia’s political map. “More than polarization, what we’re seeing is a broadening of the political landscape,” Sandra Borda, a political scientist at the Universidad de los Andes, told CNN.

“The peace process opened a lot of ground for the left. To the same degree, it inevitably (opened) ground to the right.”

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