The far-right lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella won the first round of Colombia\u2019s presidential election on Sunday and will face senator Iv\u00e1n Cepeda, the candidate backed by leftwing president Gustavo Petro, in the runoff.<\/p>\n
With 99.97% of ballots counted, the outsider and Donald Trump admirer Espriella secured 43.7% of the vote \u2013 just over 10.3m votes \u2013 compared with 40.9% (about 9.6m votes) for Cepeda, a philosopher and human rights activist who has served as a senator since 2014.<\/p>\n
The two will face each other in a runoff on 21 June.<\/p>\n
Although polls in recent weeks had already detected Espriella\u2019s rapid rise, most still showed him trailing Cepeda, who for months seemed to hold a solid lead.<\/p>\n
Espriella appears to have consolidated much of the vote that had previously been going to the rightwing senator Paloma Valencia, who at one point polled above 20% and was running in second place but finished Sunday with just 6.9%.<\/p>\n
Espriella, who calls himself el Tigre (the Tiger), celebrated the result: \u201cCompatriots, defenders of the homeland, more than 10 million Colombians placed their trust in el Tigre and joined the pack … In 21 days, we are going to change the history of Colombia forever,\u201d he said in a video<\/a> alongside his wife and children, all wearing shirts of the Colombian national football team.<\/p>\n Petro posted<\/a> on X that \u201cas president, I do not accept the preliminary results\u201d released by the National Civil Registry, the independent public body responsible for organising Colombia\u2019s elections.<\/p>\n Without showing any evidence, the president claimed the count included \u201c800,000 additional people\u201d and said he would only \u201cconsider and accept\u201d the results of the official scrutiny process, during which the National Electoral Council reviews the physical tally sheets, a procedure that can take days or even weeks.<\/p>\n The lawyer Juan Carlos Galindo V\u00e1cha, who previously headed the National Civil Registry on two occasions, accused Petro of spreading \u201cdisinformation\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cHistorically, in presidential elections, the difference between the preliminary count, which is unofficial, and the official scrutiny process is less than 1%. That alone undermines any claim by President Petro that there was fraud in the count,\u201d he said in an interview with Radio Caracol.<\/p>\n He added: \u201cThe president should show greater respect for the citizens who take part in the electoral process, whether as polling officials or electoral observers. He should not make these wild claims that even he does not understand.\u201d<\/p>\n Cepeda delivered his speech shortly after Petro\u2019s post and echoed the president\u2019s allegations, likewise without presenting evidence. The senator said there was \u201cinformation regarding a certain number of polling stations\u201d in which \u201catypical voting patterns\u201d had allegedly occurred. \u201cOnly once the electoral commissions have fully clarified this matter will we comment on tonight\u2019s results,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n After a wave of victories by far-right candidates in recent years in Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Bolivia and Honduras, Colombia remains one of the few countries in Latin America still governed by the left, alongside Mexico and Brazil, which will hold its own presidential election in October.<\/p>\n Espriella is an outspoken admirer of several rightwing leaders in the region, including the US president, Donald Trump, El Salvador\u2019s Nayib Bukele and Argentina\u2019s Javier Milei.<\/p>\n A criminal lawyer and millionaire businessman who has never held public office, Espriella built his campaign around a promise to return to a policy of total confrontation in response to Colombia\u2019s worsening security crisis<\/a>, now considered the worst since the landmark 2016 peace agreement between the government and most of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc).<\/p>\n Espriella advocates ending Petro\u2019s \u201ctotal peace\u201d policy of negotiating the dismantling of criminal groups \u2013 of which Cepeda is widely regarded as the architect \u2013 and replacing it with a mano dura (iron-fist) strategy inspired above all by El Salvador\u2019s populist strongman Bukele, who has imprisoned at least 2% of his country\u2019s adult population as part of a controversial crackdown on gangs. Even the lawyer\u2019s neatly trimmed beard and habitual use of baseball caps have drawn comparisons with Bukele\u2019s style.<\/p>\n Espriella has incorporated his tiger nickname into much of his campaign branding. He has attracted controversy<\/a> by attacking journalists and, at one point, telling a radio host that he was winning over female voters because of the size of his genitals.<\/p>\n In a speech on Sunday night, Valencia acknowledged the result and endorsed Espriella in the runoff.<\/p>\n Despite widespread concern about security, election day itself passed peacefully.<\/p>\n