Colombians, fed up with violence, prepare to vote in divisive elections

Millions in Colombia will go to the polls on Sunday to vote in one place high-profile presidential election that is expected to result in a runoff between two significantly different candidates.

A new president may be elected, but no candidate is expected to clear the 50% required to win in the first round. A run-off between the top two finishers is almost certain on June 21.

The votes show that the race between the 14 who will be voted for has reached three names, although two are full. Far left is Senator Iván Cepeda, candidate of the ruling party Pacto Histórico and heir The policies of President Gustavo Petro. On the far right is Abelardo de la Espriella, a lawyer who has modeled his speech and optics after President Trump and Nayib Bukele from El Salvador. Right-wing Senator Paloma Valencia, supported former President Alvaro Uribehe positioned himself as a centre-right candidate.

An AtlasIntel poll published last week, based on 4,531 interviews, put Cepeda in the lead in the first round by a very small margin at 38.7%, over de la Espriella at 37.3%, while both candidates doubled Valencia’s 14.3%. The centrist president and former mayor of Medellin, Sergio Fajardo, is trailing far behind in the first round. All three candidates, according to the survey, will defeat Cepeda in a runoff.

Colombians will vote on an idea to end violence

Polarized Colombia wants change. Low-income families living near plantations of coca, the shrub used to make cocaine, have watched years of failed peace talks make their communities more vulnerable. Human rights groups have documented more than 50 massacres in Colombia this year, including clashes between warring groups this week that left around 50 people dead. Research shows that Petro’s peace negotiation policies have resulted in increasing the strength and membership of armed gangs.

The campaign cycle itself is overshadowed by the assassination of a presidential candidatethe bombing, kidnapping and killing of a number of local political leaders. Polls show that security is among voters’ top concerns, second only to health care. These three leaders offered completely different solutions to Colombia’s security development.

Right-wing candidate De la Espriella is a fiery force, literally – he has used pyrotechnic devices at his explosive campaign events. Like President Trump, he is considered a political outsider who has mocked traditional politicians. In this campaign, he got into conflicts that seem disrespectful, especially with female journalists. He proposes to bomb the smugglers’ camps, end all negotiations with drug traffickers and build 10 high-security private prisons, inspired El Salvador’s infamous CECOT“in the center,” where the prisoners would have to “work for their food.”

De la Espriella, like Bukele, backs away from concern for human rights saying that the left cares more about the rights of criminals than their victims. He promises to restart the suspended transportation of coca plantations with glyphosate, bring down small planes and sink. drug boats.

Cepeda, who is a left-wing candidate, has goals it’s like Peter. He has participated and continues to promote negotiations with guerillas and cartels. He is accused by his opponents of having ties to FARC terrorists, which he denies. Daniel Mejía, a professor who studies drug policy at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogota, described Cepeda as “having a soft hand not only in the cultivation of coca, but also in the organized crime groups that control the production of cocaine.”

Center-right option Valencia has called for an increase in ground troops and drone surveillance, as well as the resumption of aerial spraying of coca crops. Valencia criticized de la Espriella and called his online tactics “circus.” Mejía called Valencia’s approach “balanced,” and said he believed he would “have a soft hand on coca farmers but a hard hand on drug trafficking organizations and illegal armed groups.”

Crime is not the only issue that brings people to the polls. Business owners who have received the biggest minimum wage shock in decades are waiting to see if the new government will reverse or increase it. Voting security is also a concern, with observers documenting incidents of voter intimidation by armed groups in rural areas. Last year, Colombia’s most powerful drug lord directly threatened violence ahead of this year’s elections, warning against what he called “warmongering sectors,” thought to be right-wing Colombians.

In a press conference last week, Cepeda rejected “any attempt by armed groups to suppress voters in any way, whether they are acts that are against us, or that are said to be in favor of our campaign.”

The Trump administration could see an ally or an enemy chosen

For the Trump administration, Colombia’s new president could be a powerful ally or adversary as the US continues its aggressive anti-drug operations. The administration’s kinetic war on drugs in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific has had they killed more than 200 people suspected of smuggling in tens of strikes. The US has also cooperated with friendly governments in the region, such as itself Daniel Noboa from Ecuadorfighting drug cartels and other drug traffickers.

After the capture of the Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and the US campaign to suppress the Cuban regime, the victory of the right wing in the elections will also be accompanied by an increase in the management efforts of geopolitics in the region. Jose Antonio Ocampo, former Colombian finance minister and professor of economics at Columbia University in New York City, said Mr.

Historically, Colombia has been the United States’ leading counternarcotics partner and the most important trade partner in the Western Hemisphere. But US-Colombia relations have worsened under Petro. The State Department impeached the President Petro’s visa to the USUS Treasury he approved him personallyand according to the New York Times, the Department of Justice launch an investigation in his alleged meetings with drug traffickers.

United Nations statistics also estimate that Colombia is producing more cocaine than ever, despite Petro expressing shock at the record in an interview with CBS News. In 2025, Mr. Trump officially ruled that Colombia had “clearly failed” in its commitment to the fight against drugs and threatened to strike the South American country. The tension subsided after Mr. Trump and Petro met at the White House in February.

“This is an election where the people of Colombia will decide which way to go,” Senator Bernie Moreno, a Republican from Ohio who was born in Colombia, told an Atlantic Council panel last week. “We saw one way, and we had to take military action in Venezuela to fix that. And we saw other ways where you have unlimited prosperity, unlimited security, unlimited opportunities.”

“If Colombia, heaven forbid, goes in the wrong direction, what you will see is all the bad actors currently present in Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, moving to Colombia,” said Moreno. “That would be a huge disaster for Latin America.”