Trump-backed Abelardo de la Espriella leads tight Colombia presidential race

Abelardo de la Espriella, a lawyer with no elected-office experience, led Colombia’s presidential race with 49.7% of the vote, holding a narrow edge over leftist senator Iván Cepeda as nearly all ballots were counted. The result put the Trump-endorsed outsider on the brink of ending four years of leftist rule under Gustavo Petro and showed how quickly a hard-line outsider could absorb the country’s anger over insecurity and stagnation.

The campaign turned on fears that were unmistakably domestic. De la Espriella ran on a tougher crackdown on crime, an end to peace talks with rebels and criminal groups, lower taxes, a smaller state and a push to revive oil and gas production. Cepeda argued for continuity with Petro’s agenda, including pensions for the poor, labor reforms, peace talks and a moratorium on new oil projects. Trump’s endorsement, delivered earlier this month, framed the race as pivotal for Colombia and its relationship with the United States.

The margins also reflected a fractured electorate. More than 41 million Colombians were eligible to vote, more than 26.2 million cast ballots, and about 420,000 turned in blank ballots, a sign of protest in a country that has spent years cycling through distrust and polarization. Even if the lead held, De la Espriella would inherit high public debt and a divided Congress, where only five lawmakers belong directly to his movement, limiting how quickly he could turn campaign promises into policy.

His rise carried significance well beyond Bogotá. De la Espriella’s tough rhetoric against armed groups and his promise to build 10 megaprisons drew comparisons to El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, placing him in a broader regional pattern where security-first populism, anti-establishment branding and close alignment with Washington have become potent political assets. A victory would signal a sharp rebuke to the left and a warning that Trump-style politics still has export value across Latin America, even when the grievance driving the vote is overwhelmingly local.