By Marcos Falcone, Cato Institute
On May 31, Colombians delivered a surprise to the world by placing right-wing Abelardo de la Espriella first in the first round of the 2026 presidential election. With 43 percent of the vote, De la Espriella surpassed Senator Iván Cepeda, the left-wing candidate, who received 40 percent but was widely expected to win. Since neither won a majority, the two candidates will face each other in a second round on June 21.
So far, De la Espriella’s campaign has mostly focused on crime. A lawyer and businessman, De la Espriella has promised to crack down on criminal gangs by building 10 mega-prisons that follow El Salvador’s notorious CECOT model—one known for human rights abuses and violations. De la Espriella’s platform, while including a promise to deregulate the economy and reduce the size of the federal government, also pledges to subsidize mortgages and significantly increase public spending in health care, raising serious concerns as Colombia is already expected to post a fiscal deficit of 6 percent of GDP in 2026. Sometimes said to be inspired by El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele and Argentina’s Javier Milei, De la Espriella in fact seems much more like the former than the latter.
Cepeda’s platform, on the other hand, represents continuity with the policies of leftist Colombian President Gustavo Petro, under whose watch Colombia has seen an ever-worsening fiscal situation and increased crime, including a recent increase in political violence not seen in decades. In fact, this campaign season was marred by the assassination of presidential hopeful Miguel Uribe as well as dozens of attacks by left-wing guerrillas, with one attack resulting in the killing of two members of De la Espriella’s team. Moreover, Petro has repeatedly shown his contempt for the rule of law by attacking Colombia’s Congress, courts, and Central Bank. With the apparent goal of weakening these checks and balances, and following the far-left strategy that has been deployed from Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela to Evo Morales’s Bolivia in recent decades, Cepeda has signaled that he could call for a constitutional assembly, which De la Espriella rejects.
The Colombian election matters because of its potential impact on its neighbor Venezuela and its ideological significance in Latin America. For years, President Petro consistently refused to condemn Nicolás Maduro’s dictatorship in Venezuela and, after Maduro’s ousting, even visited current dictator Delcy Rodríguez in Caracas. But a win by De la Espriella would mean the end of Colombia’s collaboration with the remnants of the Venezuelan regime, thus increasing pressure for democratization in the country.
To the rest of Latin America, a defeat of the Petro-backed Cepeda would send a signal that the left is still in retreat across the region, following a 2025 in which the candidates of left-wing governments were also defeated at the ballot box in Chileand Bolivia. With Petro out of the equation, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and Brazilian President Lula da Silva—currently in a tight race for reelection—would remain the sole leaders of the Latin American left, which has routinely supported authoritarian regimes and political movements in the region.
De la Espriella is now favored to win the June 21 runoff, as center-right Paloma Valencia, who placed third after receiving just 6 percent of the vote, has already announced her support for him. Former presidents Álvaro Uribe (2002–2010) and Iván Duque (2018–2022) have done the same.
Abelardo de la Espriella is no classical liberal. What is clear, though, is that his victory would mark a decisive rejection of both President Petro’s legacy and the broader left-wing project that has governed much of Latin America for the better part of the past two decades.
Marcos Falcone is a policy analyst focusing on Latin America at the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity.
