Trump-backed right-wing lawyer wins Colombia’s presidential runoff

Abelardo de la Espriella, a flamboyant Trump-backed lawyer who had never held elected office, won Colombia’s presidential runoff by a razor-thin margin and pushed the country sharply to the right. With 99% of votes counted, preliminary results showed de la Espriella at 49.7% and left-wing Senator Iván Cepeda at 48.7%, a result that set off protests in several cities and raised immediate questions about legitimacy and governability.

The June 21 runoff followed an inconclusive May 31 first round, when de la Espriella led with 43.7% to Cepeda’s just under 41%, a gap of about 668,000 votes. By the end of the campaign, security had eclipsed almost everything else. De la Espriella, a dual citizen of the United States and Colombia, ran as a hard-line outsider promising 10 mega-prisons modeled on Nayib Bukele’s El Salvador and a military offensive against guerrillas and drug networks, including bombing camps, shooting down aircraft and sinking boats used for cocaine smuggling.

The narrow win made Colombia the latest test case for the region’s right-wing populist backlash. Trump endorsed de la Espriella earlier in June, and Marco Rubio quickly congratulated him, saying the Trump administration looked forward to closer cooperation on regional security, illegal immigration and economic ties. That U.S. backing gave de la Espriella an international imprimatur even as his campaign deepened domestic polarization.

The vote also landed as a verdict on President Gustavo Petro’s left-wing agenda and his Total Peace strategy, which had sought talks with nearly a dozen armed factions but delivered growing frustration instead of calm. Petro questioned the results on social media, citing alleged irregularities at polling stations. Cepeda, a 63-year-old longtime senator and Petro ally, had said before the vote that he would recognize the result even if it went against him, though he warned that peaceful protests would follow if rights were violated.

After the runoff, protests broke out in Bogotá, Barranquilla and Cali, where demonstrators reportedly burned U.S. flags and clashed with police. Elizabeth Dickinson of the International Crisis Group said Colombians had effectively split between two extremes, with half voting for a hard-handed security crackdown and half for social and economic reforms. The result left de la Espriella facing a narrow mandate, a restless street, and a country whose peace process, relationship with Washington and political center of gravity could all be upended by his victory.