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The left-wing senator and far-right newcomer will face one another in a runoff on June 21, with safety a high difficulty.
Revealed On 31 Might 2026
Far-right outsider Abelardo de la Espriella will face left-wing Senator Ivan Cepeda within the runoff for Colombia’s presidential election subsequent month.
As polls closed on Sunday, the 2 candidates surged forward within the vote tally, shortly extinguishing the hopes of right-wing Senator Paloma Valencia, a former frontrunner.
As of Sunday afternoon, with 99 % of the votes tallied, de la Espriella took the lead, with 43 % of the ballots forged in his favour.
Cepeda trailed him by greater than 600,000 votes, incomes 40 % of the ballots.
Neither candidate breached the 50-percent threshold wanted to keep away from a head-to-head match-up on June 21. However the outcomes are more likely to buoy de la Espriella’s marketing campaign going into the ultimate spherical.
Cepeda had persistently topped public opinion polls within the closing weeks earlier than voting. A Might 24 ballot from the Nationwide Consulting Centre (CNC), for example, confirmed him with greater than 33 % help, forward of de la Espriella’s 30.9 %.
However questions on safety have been on the forefront of voters’ considerations going into Sunday’s election.
De la Espriella, a businessman who has by no means held elected workplace, leaned closely into fears of crime as he launched an outsider marketing campaign, related within the type to the dark-horse bid of Argentinian President Javier Milei.
In contrast, Cepeda is a well known amount in Colombian politics. His father was a senator too, in addition to a pacesetter in Colombia’s Communist Occasion, earlier than he was assassinated in 1994, in what was extensively thought of to be an act of political violence.
Cepeda himself has served as a senator since 2014. Earlier than that, he served within the Chamber of Deputies, representing the capital Bogota.
Throughout his political profession, he turned embroiled in a long-running authorized dispute with former right-wing President Alvaro Uribe, whom he accused of complicity with right-wing paramilitaries.
Uribe initially sued Cepeda for defamation, however in a dramatic twist, the Supreme Court docket dismissed the cost and as a substitute investigated Uribe for witness tampering.
Whereas Uribe was discovered guilty and sentenced to 12 years of home arrest, an appeals court docket finally struck down the verdict, citing procedural errors, together with inadequate proof.
