The first round of the presidential elections in Colombia met the expectations of the polls, none of the 12 candidates reached 50 percent plus one of the votes to be elected in the first round. However, the results of the candidates who will enter the second round have fallen short of expectations. Iván Cepeda, political heir of the current president Gustavo Petro, was only the second most voted. Ahead of him is the far-right candidate Abelardo De La Espriella.
The results
When just under 1 percent of the ballots are missing, De La Espriella can count on 10.3 million votes (43.74 percent of the preferences in total). Cepeda follows him at a distance with 9.6 million votes (40.9 percent). While the other candidates did not gather enough support to enter the second round. Paloma Valencia, senator, obtained 6.9 percent of the preferences, while Sergio Fajardo, former governor of Antioquia, 4.2 percent. 56 percent of those entitled to vote participated in these elections. The second round will be held on June 21st.
Who are the most voted challengers
The favorite Iván Cepeda ran with the idea of carrying out the political program of the outgoing president Gustavo Petro. Cepeda is the son of a communist leader who was assassinated by corrupt people in 1994. After learning the preliminary voting results, he criticized the far-right candidate as a “crook of crooks and drug trafficker.” Cepeda also said he was optimistic for the second round: “We will win in the second round, there is no doubt. We will not hand Colombia over to the criminal practices of internal fascism. We will not allow it.” Furthermore, he urged undecided voters and young people to take “the right side of history”, since, according to Cepeda, “the future of the country depends on it”.
The declarations of De La Espriella, known as “El tigre”, are of a completely different tone: “There will be no peace process in my government”. The far-right candidate reiterated that in the first 90 days of his government he will conduct an aerial bombing campaign against drug traffickers and paramilitary groups. De La Espriella is a well-known criminal lawyer who leads a business group that ranges from clothing to rum. His movement, Defensores de la Patria, has no MP in the outgoing legislature. He has rhetoric similar to that of Donald Trump and intends to further liberalize the Colombian economy along the lines of Argentine President Javier Milei.