{"id":709546,"date":"2026-06-02T07:27:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T07:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/709546\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T07:27:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T07:27:10","slug":"celebration-shock-and-scepticism-follow-colombias-presidential-election-elections-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/709546\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebration, shock and scepticism follow Colombia\u2019s presidential election | Elections News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Less than two hours after polling stations closed on Sunday, it was clear that Colombia\u2019s presidential race would be settled in a run-off between two finalists: hard-right political outsider Abelardo de la Espriella and leftist Senator Ivan Cepeda.<\/p>\n

Though the overall result surprised few, de la Espriella\u2019s strong showing upended pollsters\u2019 predictions.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n

Cepeda, President Gustavo Petro\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0chosen successor, had been expected to win the most votes, based on public opinion surveys.<\/p>\n

But instead, de la Espriella came in first place<\/a>, winning 43.74 percent of the vote. Cepeda trailed with 40.90 percent.<\/p>\n

Supporters of de la Espriella, a criminal defence lawyer, held rapturous celebrations in the coastal city of Barranquilla, where the candidate has an office.<\/p>\n

\u201cColombia won, and with more than 10 million votes, democracy won,\u201d said Elsa Suarez, a de la Espriella voter living in Bogota.<\/p>\n

The far-right candidate has modelled himself after politicians like Donald Trump in the United States and Javier Milei in Argentina, flamboyant media personalities who won the presidency despite having little to no political experience.<\/p>\n

Like them, de la Espriella has pledged a return to \u201claw and order\u201d, as well as a pared-back national government and policies to support traditional family values.<\/p>\n

Notably, he promises to use an \u201ciron fist\u201d to stamp out crime and build megaprisons to jail criminals, mimicking the policies of Salvadoran strongman Nayib Bukele.<\/p>\n

Analysts say de la Espriella\u2019s populist messaging resonated with voters in Colombia\u2019s interior, where urban crime is a growing concern.<\/p>\n

Electoral maps<\/a> show de la Espriella besting Cepeda in 16 of the country\u2019s 32 departments, primarily in the heart of Colombia and along the border with Venezuela.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn more central areas and closer to the capitals, people prioritise security,\u201d explained Laura Bonilla, the deputy director at the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation (PARES), a Bogota-based research nonprofit.<\/p>\n

By contrast, de la Espriella\u2019s security messaging failed to sway voters along the coast and in border areas afflicted by rebel violence.<\/p>\n

Bonilla argues that people in these regions instead place greater value on the socioeconomic issues that Cepeda represents, as the continuity candidate for Petro\u2019s Historic Pact party.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the past four years, they have received constant attention from the government,\u201d said Bonilla, citing state development projects under the Petro administration.<\/p>\n

\"ColombianColombian presidential candidate Ivan Cepeda of the Historic Pact party holds a news conference in Bogota, Colombia, on June 1 [Enea Lebrun\/Reuters]A blow to the conservative establishment<\/p>\n

De la Espriella\u2019s success also highlights growing anti-establishment sentiment in Colombia, according to experts.<\/p>\n

The lawyer, who has never run for public office before, comfortably beat his main rival on the right, Senator Paloma Valencia, who was backed by former President Alvaro Uribe<\/a>, the figurehead of Colombian conservatism.<\/p>\n

Initially, Sunday\u2019s election was predicted to be a close race between Valencia and de la Espriella, both of whom lagged behind Cepeda in the polls.<\/p>\n

But as Sunday\u2019s ballots were tallied, Valencia flopped with less than 7 percent of the vote.<\/p>\n

Miguel Silva, a Colombian political consultant, credited some of de la Espriella\u2019s success to his campaign messaging.<\/p>\n

De la Espriella, he explained, used his campaign to draw a distinction between the haves and the have-nots, those who have benefitted from the government and those who feel ignored.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe [succeeded] by portraying himself and the people he represents as \u2018Los Nunca\u2019 and by portraying Paloma and her followers as \u2018Los Siempre\u2019,\u201d Silva said, using the Spanish words for \u201cThe Nevers\u201d and \u201cThe Always\u201d.<\/p>\n

Pollsters predicted the right would be divided in the first round, paving the way for Cepeda to win the most votes, but de la Espriella captured millions of votes from traditional conservatives, marking a shift in Colombia\u2019s political landscape.<\/p>\n

In Bogota, the only province in the country\u2019s interior to vote for Cepeda, the left-wing candidate\u2019s supporters were shocked by Sunday\u2019s results.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone is a little surprised,\u201d said Juan Camilo Rodriguez, who voted for Cepeda. \u201cThese results don\u2019t match the polls.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NewspapersNewspapers at a Bogota newsstand show the results of the first round of Colombia\u2019s presidential election on June 1 [Enea Lebrun\/Reuters]<\/p>\n

Petro himself had hammered his base to flood the polls, warning that the left\u2019s chances of success could be hampered by electoral fraud.<\/p>\n

The outgoing president rejected last night\u2019s results, which were based on the \u201cpre-conteo\u201d, or preliminary count, a non-legally binding process.<\/p>\n

Instead, Petro called on the public to wait for the official, scrutinised count, which will be released in the coming days.<\/p>\n

Cepeda echoed the president\u2019s scepticism in a speech on Sunday night. \u201cOnly once the vote-counting committees have fully, clearly, and thoroughly clarified this matter, will we comment on tonight\u2019s results,\u201d he told supporters.<\/p>\n

But the candidate appeared to mellow his stance this morning, acknowledging that there was no evidence of irregularities in the vote. He trailed de la Espriella by more than 670,000 votes.<\/p>\n

Experts warn that Cepeda is losing precious time by focusing on fraud allegations and should instead concentrate on swaying moderate voters.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy crying fraud so early, it\u2019s hard to bring more voters to the table,\u201d said Silva.<\/p>\n

A second round of voting, between Cepeda and de la Espriella, is scheduled for June 21.<\/p>\n

Up for grabs are more than a million votes for centrist candidate Sergio Fajardo and 1.6 million for Paloma Valencia. While Valencia endorsed de la Espriella, her running mate, moderate politician Juan Daniel Oviedo, did not.<\/p>\n

Miguel Jaramillo Lujan, a Colombian political strategist, said the final two candidates must tread carefully in the next three weeks to prevail.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the saying goes, whoever makes fewer mistakes will be the winner.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Less than two hours after polling stations closed on Sunday, it was clear that Colombia\u2019s presidential race would…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":709547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[29759,3411,893,43,799,44,714,11808,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-709546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-colombia","tag-elections","tag-government","tag-headlines","tag-latin-america","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-the-far-right","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=709546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/709547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=709546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=709546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=709546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}