Colombia chooses this Sunday between continuing with Petro’s social model or turning right

This Sunday, Colombians have an appointment with the polls to elect the president’s successor, Gustavo Petro, in an electoral race that is limited to the follower of his social model, Iván Cepeda, and those who are betting on turning to the right, Abelardo de la Espriella and Paloma Valencia, in the midst of strong polarization and the failure of the current Government to bring peace to the country.

There are 41.1 million Colombians registered on the electoral roll, including those residing abroad, who have already been able to begin voting throughout this week. On this occasion, the voters will exclusively elect the president and vice president, once the legislative elections were already held in March.

To avoid a second round, any candidate must exceed 50% of the votes. The only one capable of achieving this, according to some surveys, is Cepeda, who has been at the forefront of some polls throughout the campaign, which at least ensure his passage to the final round on June 21.

Cepeda has promised to follow the progressive agenda of outgoing president Gustavo Petro, who has sought to reinforce the presence of the State in issues such as pensions and health, as well as restart any peace negotiation process only with those armed groups that stop assassinating social leaders.

The most optimistic polls give Cepeda up to 44% of the votes, while the most cautious ones place him ten points below. The Historic Pact candidate, however, risks being defeated in a hypothetical second round due to the foreseeable union of conservative forces.

Although he has extensive experience in Congress, this philosopher and defender of Human Rights has reinforced his political career with his judicial dispute with former Colombian president Álvaro Uribe for his alleged links with paramilitary groups and false witnesses, for which he was convicted and later acquitted.

Cepeda has participated in several negotiation processes with armed groups, including the one in 2016 with the extinct FARC and has achieved, as a defender of Human Rights, the recognition as genocide of the massacre of more than 5,700 people due to their militancy in Unión Patriótica (UP), of which his father was part before being murdered in 1994 in a plot between the State and the paramilitaries.

CONSERVATIVE APPLICANTS

The best placed to discuss this dominance of Cepeda in the polls is the self-proclaimed ‘outsider’ of Colombian politics Abelardo de la Espriella, a businessman and controversial far-right who as a lawyer has come to represent controversial figures such as the convicted fraudster David Murcia Guzmán and Alex Saab, considered the front man of the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro.

‘Regain strength by reason or by force within the framework of the law’ is one of the campaign slogans of this confessed admirer of President Donald Trump and his anti-drug policy. As other conservative leaders in the region have been doing, he has opted for the strong-arm model of Salvadoran Nayib Bukele.

De la Espriella has also spoken of a shock plan to resolve the humanitarian crisis that exists in the Colombian health sector and a relentless fight against corruption, promising to put those more than 20 million euros that he estimates are embezzled each year into the pockets of Colombians.

Under his independent candidacy Defensores de la patria, the polls give him between 30 and 37% of the votes, some of the most optimistic, although others such as those of the Caracol radio station or the newspaper ‘El Tiempo’ the gap is up to ten points in favor of the ruling party candidate.

The third in place is Senator Paloma Valencia, a member of a dynasty of conservative politicians such as former president Guillermo León Valencia. The Democratic Center candidate is the one chosen by former President Uribe for elections, in which she would collect 14% of the votes, insufficient for a second round.

Like De la Espriella, he proposes increasing military offensives against armed groups, even with the collaboration of the United States, imposing more punitive measures and has disagreed with the special justice arising from the 2016 peace agreements and any negotiated solution.

He also defends a conservative vision of the family, has denied that abortion is a women’s right and has opposed adoption by same-sex couples, something he reiterated again in front of his presidential running mate, Juan Daniel Oviedo, an openly homosexual candidate.

They still remember Valencia how a few years ago he proposed dividing the department of Cauca into two, one for the indigenous people – whom he accused of colluding with the FARC – “so that they can carry out their strikes, their demonstrations and their invasions, and one with a vocation for development”, which would be for the rest of the inhabitants.

CHALLENGES FOR THE NEXT LEGISLATURE

One of the great concerns of the electorate is the problems of the public health system. Added to the lack of medicines and personnel are management problems, resources and the arrival of thousands of Venezuelans who come to the border areas to receive assistance that they cannot receive in their country.

Petro will leave Casa Nariño with his health reform filed in Congress after more than a year of debates, with which he intended, for example, to strengthen the network of primary care centers, but above all for the State to centralize control of resources, thus ending the mediation of private companies, which he accuses of misuse of funds, this being the main point of friction.

Along with health, corruption and security are the other issues that most concern the electorate. Colombia continues to be one of the most violent countries in the region. According to official figures, in 2025 the homicide rate was the highest since 2021, up to 14,000. In the last five years, armed groups have doubled their members; the most paradigmatic case is that of the Clan del Golfo.

Its ambitious peace policy has come up against the harsh reality that drug trafficking, the true driving force behind these armed groups, continues to be much more lucrative than the alternatives that the State can offer, despite having reduced the number of poor people, increasing the minimum wage, and with slightly higher growth forecasts than the rest of the countries in the region.

Although Petro has managed to carry out its agrarian reform, formalizing 1.7 million hectares, promoting the replacement of illicit crops instead of resorting to eradication and achieving some of the largest cocaine seizures in recent years, coca crops are at historic highs.

Whoever the next president is, he must take his electoral promises to a Congress where the ruling Historical Pact is the largest political force in both chambers, followed by the Democratic Center, which predicts an important polarization, in which other classic formations, such as liberals and conservatives, will be decisive in forming majorities and possible government coalitions.