Colombia swings right as pro-Trump outsider Abelardo de la Espriella wins presidency by one percentage point

The razor-thin result

With more than 99% of polling stations reported, Abelardo de la Espriella took 49.65% of the vote against Ivan Cepeda’s 48.71% in Sunday’s second round, according to preliminary results. The margin of roughly one percentage point made it the tightest presidential contest in recent Colombian memory. Some 41 million voters were eligible to cast ballots, and turnout was heavy in a race seen as a referendum on the country’s first leftist government.

Who is Abelardo de la Espriella?

Nicknamed ‘El Tigre’, the 47-year-old millionaire lawyer ran as an anti-system candidate who promised a crackdown on drug-trafficking armed groups. De la Espriella, a political novice who openly admires Donald Trump and enjoyed backing from Washington, campaigned on a virulent anti-guerrilla platform. The election marks a meteoric rise for a candidate who sold himself as a patriot and an outsider, tapping into deep dissatisfaction with the outgoing Gustavo Petro administration.

The defeated left

Ivan Cepeda, a 63-year-old senator, philosopher and human-rights defender, was carried by the popularity of his ally President Gustavo Petro. Petro, constitutionally barred from seeking a second term, had presided over poverty reduction and higher wages in one of the world’s most unequal countries. Cepeda trailed de la Espriella after the first round but closed the gap dramatically in the runoff, nearly pulling off an upset against the right-wing frontrunner.

Violence and cocaine

Sunday’s vote played out against a surge of violence unseen since the 2016 peace deal with the FARC guerrilla group. Community leaders have been threatened and killed, civilians hit by bomb attacks, and a presidential hopeful murdered during the campaign. Colombia remains the world’s biggest producer of cocaine, and de la Espriella won by pledging an iron-fisted response to the organised-crime and guerrilla networks that have thrived amid the security deterioration.

What the shift means

De la Espriella’s victory ends the left’s historic four-year hold on the presidency and realigns Colombia with a harder-right, US-friendly posture. The narrow mandate, however, signals a deeply polarised nation, with large segments of the electorate still loyal to the social gains of the Petro era. The new president will face immediate pressure to deliver on his security promises while managing a congress and a street that remain sharply divided.