By Sunday night, with more than 99 percent of ballots counted, Abelardo de la Espriella held 49.7 percent of the vote in Colombia’s presidential runoff. His opponent, the leftist senator Ivan Cepeda, had 48.7 percent. The gap came to roughly 250,000 votes.
De la Espriella, a right-wing populist who goes by “The Tiger,” declared victory. Four years of leftist government under outgoing President Gustavo Petro are ending. He is due to take office in August, when Petro’s term expires; the constitution bars a sitting president from running again.
A rich outsider
He is 48, a criminal defense lawyer and millionaire businessman with Colombian and American citizenship. He owns property in Miami and until recently lived in Florence, Italy. Before the first round of voting three weeks earlier, he was seen as an underdog. He calls himself an outsider, “the Tiger who has awakened.”
His legal clients have drawn criticism: militia members, drug traffickers and Alex Saab, a close associate of ousted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. He has not apologised, saying the work was purely professional. Remarks of his widely described as homophobic and sexist have also cost him some goodwill.
Security, spending and the dollar
The vote took place amid a spike in violence. Colombia recorded 14,780 homicides last year, the highest figure since at least 2015, driven by fighting among illegal armed groups. Extortion cases reached 13,417 in 2025, more than double the 2015 level. The country supplies roughly two-thirds of the world’s cocaine. Campaign season brought guerrilla attacks, hundreds of threats against candidates and the killing of conservative senator Miguel Uribe, shot dead at a Bogota rally about a year ago.
De la Espriella says he will scrap Petro’s “Total Peace” policy, which sought talks with every armed group at once and was widely seen as having emboldened them. In its place he promises a 90-day aerial bombing campaign against what he calls narco-terrorist camps. “We will immediately begin bombing narco-terrorist camps and spraying drug crops,” he said in February. “This cannot be done without a strategic alliance with the United States and the State of Israel.”
He has also vowed to build ten jungle mega-prisons modeled on those of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, and to declare a state of emergency that would widen his executive powers. On the economy, he wants to cut government spending by around 40 percent, extract fuel from oil shales and make the US dollar Colombia’s official currency. He has praised Argentine President Javier Milei as well as Bukele.
Israel and Washington
Petro cut diplomatic ties with Israel in 2024 over the war in Gaza, accusing it of genocide, a charge Israel strongly denies. He also imposed sanctions, banned coal exports to Israel and joined South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice.
De la Espriella plans to restore relations immediately and go further. “In my government, Colombia will take a clear step in its foreign policy – we will establish our embassy in Jerusalem and strengthen our direct, strong and strategic relationship with Israel,” he wrote to the country’s Jewish community.
President Donald Trump phoned to congratulate him and posted: “He won, big!” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the administration looks forward to working with the new government on regional security, illegal immigration and trade. Milei and Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa were among the first foreign leaders to send congratulations. Crowds in Bogota’s streets chanted “Petro out! Petro out!”
Cepeda refuses to concede
Cepeda, a 63-year-old senator and philosopher whose father, a Communist leader, was assassinated in 1994, has not conceded. His campaign said it would challenge results from more than 33,000 voting stations and would not recognise the outcome until the official count is finished. Petro also vowed to contest it. No recount of a presidential election has ever overturned a result in Colombia.
The win follows right-leaning victories in Chile, Argentina, Costa Rica and Ecuador, and Bolivia has ended two decades of leftist rule. Concern over crime and worsening economic conditions drove much of the shift, with Trump openly endorsing right-wing candidates.
