Right and Left Vie for Victory in Colombia under U.S. Shadow
Colombians go to the polls on 31 May to select a new president.
In this Q&A, Crisis Group experts Glaeldys González Calanche and Víctor Aguilar Pereira explain what is at stake.
What is happening?
Colombians will vote for a new president on 31 May at the end of a polarised campaign marked by sharply contrasting views of the outgoing left-wing government. Of the pool of eleven candidates, none is likely to secure the 50 per cent of votes needed to win outright, but three have a real prospect of getting to a second round on 21 June. Pre-election polls show Iván Cepeda, a left-wing senator from the governing Historic Pact party, winning between 33 and 45 per cent of the vote. Hard-right lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella, from the Defenders of the Homeland movement, and right-wing senator Paloma Valencia, from the Democratic Centre party, are competing for second place. Candidates from the centre of the political spectrum, including former Antioquia governor Sergio Fajardo and former senator and Bogotá mayor Claudia López, are polling below 6 per cent.
Cepeda, a long-time advocate for peace negotiations in Colombia, enjoys broad support from the left. He has pledged to deepen the socio-economic reforms of outgoing President Gustavo Petro, the first elected left-wing president of modern Colombia. The right comes into the election divided. Valencia, whose party is led by former President Álvaro Uribe, has sought to build a coalition rooted in fear of radical change, incorporating parts of the traditional political establishment, while also reaching out to more liberal, urban constituencies by choosing Juan Daniel Oviedo, an openly gay centrist politician, as her running partner. On the campaign trail, she has also highlighted the historical significance of electing a woman to be Colombia’s president for the first time.
De la Espriella, for his part, has portrayed himself as the consummate political outsider and arch-conservative. A lawyer and businessman who claims to be intent on breaking the grip of Colombia’s political elites, he promises to promote “traditional family values”, in the process drawing criticism for what many see as demeaning treatment of women. De la Espriella has drawn inspiration for his security and economic policies from El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele and Argentina’s Javier Milei, and he has garnered support from smaller right-wing parties. The National Salvation Movement, founded by the late conservative politician Álvaro Gómez, who was killed by guerrillas in 1995, has become one of de la Espriella’s main political cheerleaders, even modifying its logo to incorporate the tiger, his campaign symbol.
For voters, issues such as the economy, corruption, health and insecurity rank high among the concerns. Many voters have been impressed by the government’s efforts to favour the poorest parts of society (see below). But while trust in state institutions and government officials has long been scant in Colombia, corruption scandals involving senior government figures have done further damage to perceptions of the public sector. At the same time, the health system is facing a deep financial crisis and mounting debt, leading to shortages of essential treatments and medicines. Meanwhile, a decade after the signing of a landmark peace accord to demobilise what was then the country’s largest leftist insurgency, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), insecurity has once again reached alarming heights in several areas. Though the resurgence of violence began under the previous administration, Petro’s flagship “total peace” policy, which sought to convene talks with all remaining armed and criminal groups, has struggled to reverse the trend. Armed and criminal groups have expanded in both size and territorial reach. As of 2025, they include an estimated 27,000 members, some 5,000 more than the previous year. Many illegal groups have tightened their control of local communities through extortion, recruitment and kidnapping.
Political violence has also marred the campaign from the outset: presidential pre-candidate Miguel Uribe Turbay was shot during a rally in broad daylight in Bogotá in June 2025 and later died. Cepeda, de la Espriella and Valencia have all reported death threats against them. Armed groups in critical regions also appear intent on sowing fear ahead of the polls, allegedly threatening communities with a view to influencing the vote. A local electoral monitor recently identified 386 municipalities, or just over a third of the country’s total number, as facing potential political violence, including restrictions on mobility, threats to press freedom, and attacks on social and political leaders.
Why is the country so divided?
Petro’s election, five years after the signing of the 2016 peace accord, followed a groundswell of public discontent that had been eclipsed by half a century of armed conflict with the former FARC. These grievances boiled over in 2021, as nationwide protests railing against the status quo paralysed the country for several weeks. The core motives for protest were socio-economic: the country is one of the most unequal in the world. According to the UN Development Programme, it would take ten generations for a Colombian from the lowest earning 10 per cent stratum of the population to reach middle-income status. Taking office just a year after the protests, Petro placed social policy at the centre of his government plans. Near the end of his term, Colombia has made notable progress on this front, including a 23 per cent decline in multidimensional poverty and the lowest unemployment rate since 2001. In January, his administration raised the minimum salary by 23 per cent, the largest such hike in the 21st century, while 2025 labour reforms mandated better pay for night shifts, holidays and weekends. Public spending on education increased by approximately 44 per cent between 2022 and 2026.
Redistribution has not been limited to better wages and social services. In line with the peace agreement’s goal of improving access to land, Petro’s government acquired 700,00 hectares and handed out 280,000 of them. Some 1.8 million plots were titled, giving farmers more financial security and a route to obtaining formal credit. His administration also created twenty new Campesino Reserve Zones, a scheme of collective land ownership for small-scale farmers. Petro’s approval rates, which hover around 46 per cent, enabled his party, the Historic Pact, to win the largest contingent of deputies in congressional elections in March.
Petro’s critics … paint a catastrophic picture of his presidency.
Petro’s critics, in contrast, paint a catastrophic picture of his presidency. They argue that his term has been plagued by cabinet shake-ups, scandals, corruption and ill-considered reforms that have plunged the country into fiscal turmoil, with Colombia’s net debt standing at around 58 per cent of GDP – its highest level in two decades. They accuse him of bringing the health system to the verge of collapse, as well as damaging the strong ties the country had built with the U.S. and presiding over a surge in armed violence. As a result, Petro’s opponents say, the next government will be forced to make difficult decisions to curb rising inflation and reduce the risk of default. Businesses worry that under another leftist government, the Central Bank – which the Petro administration has accused of favouring creditors and bondholders over citizens – will lose its independence in deciding monetary policy, maybe paving the way for runaway inflation.
The issue of a constituent assembly is a particular flashpoint. A committee of citizens backed by Petro and the Historic Pact coalition have pledged to collect five million signatures to press Congress into summoning a constituent assembly to rewrite the 1991 constitution, widely regarded as a democratic milestone in the country’s history. That document was an effort to give fair voice and representation to social and political groups that had long been marginalised, as well as to strengthen the state’s responses to political violence and drug trafficking. Petro says he wants to add new chapters on social reforms and tackling corruption. Opposition candidates, including Valencia, de la Espriella, Fajardo and López, reject his plan. Cepeda has not weighed in directly, but he has reiterated his longstanding call for a “national agreement” among different political forces aimed at crafting basic accords on issues ranging from peace and security to public health, environmental policy, energy sovereignty, rural development and fighting illicit business.
How will the elections affect Colombia’s security strategy?
Candidates from the right have put insecurity at the heart of their campaigns, blaming “total peace” talks for empowering criminal groups. De la Espriella and Valencia have both promised to deploy more security personnel, placing the military at the centre of a mano dura (iron fist) approach. De la Espriella has said he would expand deployments in both urban and rural areas, while Valencia has promised to station more troops along critical roads, including at spots where kidnappings have happened. Their proposals differ, however, in style and substance. De la Espriella has promised a 90-day “shock plan” including aerial bombardment, forced coca eradication and offensives against drug traffickers and armed groups, with support from the U.S. and Israel. (Petro broke relations and ended defence contracts with the latter over the war in Gaza.) De la Espriella has also proposed constructing ten privately funded maximum-security mega-prisons, inspired by the massive jail for suspected gang members that Bukele has built in El Salvador. Valencia is more cautious and respectful toward existing state institutions, pledging to resurrect the security policies of her political mentor, former President Uribe, who she has even suggested could be her defence minister (an offer he declined). She has called for a shift from “total peace” to “total security”. Her proposals include hiking defence spending, fast-tracking asset forfeiture, cutting off the sources of criminal revenue and strengthening cooperation with Washington.
In contrast, Cepeda’s supporters take pains to remind voters of how past right-wing governments, including Uribe’s, oversaw widespread human rights abuses, including the killing of at least 6,402 innocent civilians – known as “false positives” – who were reported by military units as combatants killed in action. For Cepeda and his allies, Colombia is at risk of falling into the hands of political forces that would be all too willing to repeat some of the darkest chapters of the nation’s history. The message resonates, even though Petro’s “total peace” approach is broadly unpopular: a February poll found that more than half of respondents said these negotiations had made them feel less safe. Regardless, Cepeda has promised to keep dialogue with armed and criminal groups at the core of his strategy. He has also pledged to do more to prevent child and youth recruitment, which has risen dramatically in recent years. If he wins, victory will likely come despite public frustration with “total peace”, suggesting that socio-economic issues weigh more heavily for many than the grip of armed and criminal groups in rural pockets of the country. Without elaborating on how he would deploy security forces, Cepeda has also promised to maintain and expand Petro’s more generous salary, welfare and pension benefits for the police and military.
The next elections may also decide the fate of the 2016 peace agreement, which marks its tenth anniversary in 2026, with implementation intended to last until 2031. Of the leading candidates, only Cepeda has ascribed special importance to the agreement, saying he would seek to extend it until 2035. Valencia and de la Espriella oppose continuing any effort to honour the accord. Valencia has long been one of the agreement’s most outspoken critics. While serving as senator, she proposed dissolving Congress after legislators ratified the accord, which had been rejected by a slim majority of voters in a 2016 plebiscite. De la Espriella considers the agreement to be a betrayal of the result of that same referendum. Their main criticisms of the accord revolve around the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, the transitional justice court set up to investigate and mete out punishment for the most serious crimes committed during the armed conflict. While Cepeda would keep it, Valencia is proposing a far-reaching overhaul; de la Espriella would abolish it entirely. The future of the UN mission to monitor the peace agreement also hangs in the balance, as Valencia has suggested she would like to scrap it. While the current administration in Washington might be glad to see the demise of the 2016 accord, any effort to renege on peace implementation would run the risk of sparking a diplomatic spat with the European Union and its member states, which have invested heavily in the agreement.
What are the international repercussions of the elections?
A victory for the right in Colombia’s election would bring the country into alignment with a general ideological pivot throughout Latin America, which has already seen left-wing governments fall in Bolivia, Chile and Honduras. But if Cepeda emerges triumphant, Colombia would both buck that trend and pose troubling questions as to how the U.S. under President Donald Trump might respond. Until now, Trump’s blessing has generally been an electoral asset, notably in Argentina’s congressional elections in October 2025 and the presidential election in Honduras that December. But in the wake of the 3 January U.S. operation to capture former President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores in Caracas, and the campaign to asphyxiate Cuba and bring the communist government there to heel – along with a general assertion of U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere – sentiment toward Washington has soured. Other recent ballots have not gone Washington’s way, with voters in Ecuador rejecting a proposal to allow foreign military bases in November 2025. Elsewhere, the fall of Viktor Orbán in Hungary offered an example of how counter-productive support from the Trump administration can prove to be.
The relationship with Washington has particular weight in Colombia, as the U.S. is the country’s dominant trading partner, foreign investor and military ally. Never shy about launching tirades against imperial meddling and foreign interference, Petro has found himself exposed to intensive U.S. pressure over the first year of Trump’s second presidency, as disputes about migration and counter-narcotics cooperation have escalated repeatedly. Eventually, the U.S. imposed sanctions on the president and members of his family and inner circle in October 2025 for allegedly allowing “drug cartels to flourish”. Though tensions eased somewhat after Trump and Petro met in the White House in February, Bogotá remains under scrutiny, above all for the alleged failures of its counter-narcotics policy. The two sides have agreed to pursue the high-level capture and extradition of certain armed group leaders, including some involved in peace talks.
So far, Trump and U.S. officials have avoided commenting directly on Colombia’s election, apart from condemning threats against presidential candidates. Washington could still seek to shape the race through public messaging, threats or diplomatic pressure, particularly if it goes to a second round. Of course, overt support for a right-wing candidate could play into Cepeda’s hands by fuelling resentment of U.S. interference. Even so, it is clear that Washington will expect the incoming administration to cooperate on a range of issues, including migration, access to critical minerals and drug policy. The Trump administration’s 2026 National Drug Control Strategy identifies Colombia, alongside Mexico, as a priority country for reducing coca cultivation and disrupting cocaine networks. (Washington’s concerns, if not its counter-narcotics strategy, are shared by many European countries, which have faced a rising tide of drug shipments in recent years.) Regardless of who wins, Washington can flex its institutional relationships and financial support to promote its interests in Colombia’s main judicial and security bodies, including the Attorney General’s Office and the Ministry of Defence. These institutions have strong incentives to align with U.S. counterparts, even when the two countries’ elected governments disagree.
Valencia and de la Espriella have embraced much of the U.S. agenda, above all on matters of security. Valencia has advocated a Plan Colombia 2.0, in reference to a $10 billion U.S. security support package beginning in 1999, though U.S. officials in private play down the prospect. She has said her first executive decree would immediately reactivate all arrest warrants for armed and criminal group negotiators whose warrants were suspended so that they could join talks with the government. De la Espriella has stressed his commitment to extradition. Both candidates may also favour Colombia’s inclusion in the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition, an alliance launched in March by a group of Trump-aligned countries that calls itself “the shield of the Americas”. Cepeda has retorted that ties with the U.S. are essential, but that his government would not automatically comply with Washington’s demands.
The change of administration in Colombia will also offer an opportunity to recast troubled relationships with the country’s neighbours. In recent months, Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa has accused Colombia of complacency toward armed groups operating along the shared border and imposed tariffs as high as 100 per cent. Colombia has parried Ecuador’s actions with its own heated rhetoric and tariff hikes, particularly after an unexploded bomb from the Ecuadorian military was found on Colombian territory. A change of government could create space for a reset that many hard-hit border communities which depend on trade are clamouring for. Noboa has said he could work with either Valencia or de la Espriella. Relations under a Cepeda administration, however, might be cooler, given Noboa’s caustic take on “total peace”.
Colombia’s new president will also have to wrestle with the country’s relationship with Venezuela, following years of tensions between Maduro and successive Colombian counterparts and in the aftermath of the U.S. intervention. Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, hosted Petro in Caracas in April, and the two sides pledged cooperation on migration, energy and security along their 2,200km border. Cepeda is likely to continue this approach. Valencia, however, has cultivated strong ties with the Venezuelan opposition, particularly Nobel laureate María Corina Machado, who is demanding fresh elections and an end to chavista rule. Valencia’s alignment with sectors of the Venezuelan opposition could create friction with Washington, whose priority appears to be maintaining stability. De la Espriella has suggested that rather than interact directly with Rodríguez, he would coordinate policy toward Venezuela with Washington.
Whoever takes office in August, the new president will not lack for challenges, from the handling of U.S. pressure to persistent voter demands for a fairer distribution of wealth and better public services. For communities living under the thumb of armed and criminal groups, the election offers a choice between radically different means of achieving public security. Their hope is that regardless of the outcome, the effort to protect civilians will not be an afterthought for the new government.
