Outsider Colombian conservative candidate Abelardo de la Espriella won Sunday’s first round presidential election, placing him in the lead position in anticipation of a June 21 runoff election against far-left Senator Iván Cepeda.
De la Espriella, a 47-year-old pro-Trump lawyer and businessman nicknamed “The Tiger,” is one of the 13 presidential candidates who appeared on the ballot in Sunday’s 2026 presidential election, which saw millions of Colombians head to the polls to choose who will succeed far-left President Gustavo Petro once his term ends in August. De la Espriella, and his Vice Presidential running mate José Manual Restrepo, are running as representatives of the Defenders of the Homeland conservative platform.
Results published by Colombia’s National Civil Registry indicate that, with all 100 percent of the votes counted by the early morning hours of Monday, Abelardo de la Espriella obtained over 10.36 million votes, which translates to 43.74 percent of all votes cast on Sunday. Senator Cepeda, who represents the ruling far-left Historic Pact coalition, obtained roughly 9.68 million, or 40.90 percent.
As neither candidate obtained an over 50 percent majority to win in the first round, de la Espriella and Cepeda will head to a June 21 runoff election. Voter turnout was measured at 57.88 percent, meaning over 23.97 million voters participated in the election.
De la Espriella celebrated Sunday’s results initially in a brief social media video where he appeared wearing the 2026 Colombia national soccer team jersey alongside his wife Ana Lucía Pineda and their children. The candidate thanked his followers for the over ten million votes and invited them to a victory rally on Sunday night.
“We’re heading into the runoff election to defeat tyranny and absolutism. In 21 days, we’re going to change the course of Colombia’s history forever,” de la Espriella said in the video.
Speaking to his followers at the rally later that day, de la Espriella criticized President Petro and his soon-to-be runoff rival, Senator Cepeda, accusing both of being “despicable criminals” and describing Cepeda as the “heir” of the Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) terror group — referring to the alleged past links between Cepeda and FARC.
“Petro and Cepeda are a couple of crooks; we’re going to put out of business for good,” he said during his speech.
De la Espriella also reportedly accused Petro of seeking to “perpetuate himself in power by disregarding the Colombian people” after Petro, in a social media rant, said he would not recognize the election results published by local authorities. In response, de la Espriella reportedly called upon the United States and other democratic countries to closely monitor the results of the June 21 runoff.
“Petro and his puppet, I’ve been warning about this since before the campaign, are trying to steal democracy. I ask the Armed Forces to remember their oath to the Constitution: if you uphold it, this pair of madmen will not achieve their dirty aims,” de la Espriella wrote in a social media post with a video of his Sunday night speech.
“To the Colombian people, I reiterate: we will not let them steal our democracy; we will defend our homeland by reason or by force,” he continued. “To the international community: before the eyes of the world, Maduro stole the election; it has already happened once. Keep your eyes on Colombia and do not allow Petro and Cepeda to do the same.”
The conservative presidential frontrunner candidate is also a supporter of President Donald Trump and has expressed his admiration for Argentine President Javier Milei and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, vowing to enact policies similar to those implemented by Trump, Milei, and Bukele if elected.
Some of his campaign promises include fiscal austerity measures and a reduction of the Colombian state similar to Milei in Argentina and an anti-corruption campaign across Colombian state institutions. On security, he has promised a crackdown on violent crime and narco-terrorism in Colombia that calls for the construction of ten “mega-prisons” similar to El Salvador’s CECOT, as well as the eradication of coca leaf crops in Colombia. Similarly, he has reportedly called for a “2.0 remaster” of the security policies that Colombia experienced during the administration of conservative former President Álvaro Uribe Vélez.
Former President Uribe pledged his support to de la Espriella after the conservative Democratic Center’s candidate Paloma Valencia came in third place. Uribe, in a brief video published on social media, urged his followers to vote for de la Espriella in the upcoming runoff and warned, “Colombia cannot continue down the path of becoming a branch of [Venezuela’s] chavismo” in the event of a Cepeda victory.
The Democratic Center’s frontrunner candidate, conservative Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay (no relation to the former president), was assassinated by a child last year. Valencia assumed the nomination in a climate of particular violence against conservatives and suffered significant sexist personal attacks from leftist Cepeda allies.
President Milei was among the regional heads of state who congratulated de la Espriella on his first round presidential election victory on Sunday. Milei said that, if the results are repeated in the upcoming runoff, he has no doubt that Colombia “will once again join the community of free nations and return to a path focused on defending life, liberty, and property.”
“This result reflects the Colombian people’s desire for freedom and progress, as well as their clear determination to put an end to the failed socialist model that has caused so much harm to our region, and to Colombia in particular, over the past four years,” Milei’s message read in part.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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