Tough-on-crime outsider Aberaldo de la Espriella took the lead in Colombia’s presidential race in the first round of voting on Sunday (May 31, 2026) night, setting up a runoff with Iván Cepeda, an ally of Colombia’s outgoing President Gustavo Petro who questioned the results of the election.

With no candidate taking an outright majority of the vote, the election will head to a second round in June.

But Mr. Cepeda and Mr. Petro sowed doubt in the results of the first round, claiming without evidence that hundreds of thousands of votes were manipulated and that foreign actors manipulated the results of the election.

Mr. Cepeda said he was waiting for electoral authorities to scrutinize the results before accepting the election. “Only when the vote-counting commissions have fully clarified what happened will we comment on tonight’s results,” Mr. Cepeda said, though he acknowledged the vote was likely going to a second round.

Mr. Cepeda won 41% of the vote, while de la Espriella won 44% of the votes, with 99.98% of the results counted by electoral authorities.

Mr. Cepeda is a progressive senator who has promised to carry on a fraught plan to achieve “total peace” by negotiating peace pacts with guerrillas and criminal gangs. He was consistently leading polls in the run up to the Sunday (May 31, 2026) vote, but in the weeks leading up to the election Mr. Espriella rapidly gained support with a promise that he would crack down on armed groups.

The neck-and-neck results likely spell trouble for Mr. Cepeda in the run-off election, as Mr. Espriella is expected to scoop up support from voters who threw their support behind another conservative candidate in the first round.

Mr. Espriella — a newcomer known as El Tigre, or “The Tiger” — has sought to portray himself as a supporter of United States President Donald Trump.

“Let the United States of America and democratic parties monitor this runoff election. I will lead this battle; I will be Colombia’s best warrior,” Mr. Espriella said in an impassioned speech on Sunday (May 31, 2026) night, pounding his chest behind bullet-proof glass in front of supporters.

Colombian voters are weighing peace deals or a crackdown

Voters across Latin America are increasingly ditching leaders that pitched progressive policies aimed at addressing the root issues of conflict, such as lack of opportunities for young people and corruption. Instead, voters have increasingly turned to candidates promising heavy-handed security crackdowns.

The polarised vote comes as the Trump administration is playing a more aggressive role in Latin America than any U.S. government in decades, placing mounting pressure on countries like Colombia, Mexico, and Ecuador to crack down on crime.

The election has also underscored two sharply diverging visions for the future of peace in a country marked by years of conflict.

On one side, Mr. Cepeda has promised to continue Mr. Petro’s progressive agenda and a largely failed effort to negotiate peace pacts with armed groups, following a plan that’s likely to sharply contrast with Mr. Trump’s vision for Latin America.

On the other side, Mr. Espriella has promised to fiercely crack down on criminal groups and build 10 mega-prisons, echoing the war on gangs policy of El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, which has driven down homicide rates but fuelled accusations of human rights abuses.

“Today’s election isn’t just important for us, it’s important for all of Latin America,” said Juan Acevedo, a 62-year-old sociologist walking out of a voting station in Colombia’s capital on Sunday (May 31, 2026) morning. “Whoever wins here will suggest to the region if progressive policies will continue or if things are going to return to the right.”

Vote is seen as a referendum on Petro

The election — 10 years after Colombia signed an historic peace pact with guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) — as seen as a referendum on Mr. Petro’s policies.

The deal a decade ago had offered hope to break the nation’s vicious cycle of fighting between rebel groups and the government. But violence has since roared back, in part because armed groups have taken advantage of peace negotiations with Mr. Petro’s government to make territorial gains.

That came to a head in the lead-up to the election. Criminal groups have increasingly launched drone strikes, armed attacks have plagued the race and last June, 39-year-old politician and presidential hopeful Miguel Uribe Turbay was fatally shot at a political rally. Still, Mr. Cepeda and Mr. Petro have maintained strong support among many because of progressive policies pushed forward under Mr. Petro, such as boosting the minimum wage.

Both Mr. Espriella and Paloma Valencia have touted their affinity for Mr. Trump, though Ms. Valencia’s electoral loss dealt another blow to a once powerful political current known as Uribismo.

Published – June 01, 2026 12:32 pm IST

Colombians voted on Sunday (May 31, 2026) in a Presidential election that could shift the country’s response to rising guerrilla violence, choosing between extending spluttering peace talks or turning to a hard-right military crackdown.

Pre-election polls showed left-wing senator Ivan Cepeda leading, but facing a strong challenge from hard-right lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella, a pro-Trump outsider.

The vote is in part a referendum on Colombia’s first leftist president, the outgoing Gustavo Petro, and his signature “total peace” initiative of negotiating with guerrillas and drug traffickers.

Experts say armed groups used his peace overtures to amass more territory and produce record amounts of cocaine.

The election campaign was marked by car bombs, attack drones, the assassination of one leading presidential candidate and threats on the lives of others.

De la Espriella — self-styled as “The Tiger” — addressed rallies behind bullet-proof glass.

He wants to confront armed groups in the air, on land and at sea, echoing hard-line rhetoric behind recent right-wing wins elsewhere in Latin America.

On Sunday, the 47-year-old millionaire called the election “the most important battle in the republic’s history” and claimed he could pull off an outright win, avoiding the June 21 runoff that polls suggest will be necessary.

“This government really strengthened armed groups by being so soft,” said Catalina Devia, a 42-year-old advertising executive and mother of two, who is considering emigrating if Cepeda wins.

Fear of war returning

Mr. Petro is constitutionally barred from running and has backed 63-year-old Cepeda — the son of a senator killed by right-wing paramilitaries.

Mr. Cepeda derives much of his support from the popularity of his firebrand mentor, who famously clashed last year on social media with U.S. President Donald Trump over migration and Venezuela.

Mr. Trump derided Petro as a drug trafficker and imposed sanctions on him, but the two later buried the hatchet, with Mr. Petro welcomed at the White House in February.

Low-income voters particularly feel grateful to Mr. Petro, an ex-guerrilla, for hiking the minimum wage, raising overtime pay and transferring 700,000 hectares of land to the poor.

“I like the direction the Petro government took,” said Pedro Barragan, a 52-year-old teacher voting in central Bogota.

“I think we’ve done quite a lot in terms of education… protecting the environment, social justice, and defending human rights.”

Whoever replaces Petro will have to reckon with an alphabet soup of criminal groups engaging in drug trafficking, illegal mining and extortion.

Cepeda’s backers fear a right-wing victory would spark a return to decades of war between the State and armed groups.

Right-wing rivals

De la Espriella, who styles himself on El Salvador’s iron-fisted President Nayib Bukele but looks to Argentina’s Javier Milei on the economy, has vowed that guerrillas and drug-traffickers will face either “the grave or prison.”

Third-placed conservative Senator Paloma Valencia, 48, a close ally of kingmaker and former president Alvaro Uribe, also favors a militarized approach.

But she also sought to win over centrists and women anxious for Colombia to have its first female president.

“What Colombia needs is calm and education, nothing more,” Maria Juliana Duque, a 44-year-old Valencia voter, said in Bogota, dismissing Cepeda and De la Espriella as twin “evils.”

Despite worsening violence in remote rebel-held areas, election day was calm.

The government deployed 408,000 law enforcement officers to ensure security.

In Uribia, near Colombia’s restive border with Venezuela, voters demanded better security but also better health services, roads and more jobs.

“What do I expect from the new government? That it take Indigenous communities into account,” Yorelis Polanco, a member of the Wayuu community, said.

Colombia is the world’s largest cocaine producer, and the drug trade has much to answer for the worst violence in a decade.

Last year’s killing of right-wing candidate Miguel Uribe, blamed on a leftist guerrilla group, has left many Colombians nervous about a return to the bad old days.

In late April, a bomb on a highway in the southwestern Cauca region killed 21 people, making it the deadliest attack against civilians in recent decades. The group responsible later claimed a “tactical error.”

Published – June 01, 2026 04:40 am IST