Having supported Iván Cepeda as the candidate to succeed Colombian President Gustavo Petro, most left-wing and democratic Latin Americans were not surprised by the meteoric rise of a Javier Milei-style far-right candidate in the final weeks of the presidential campaign.
Libertarian lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella not only managed to rapidly rise in the polls, but got through to the second round just ahead of Cepeda, a reserved university philosophy lecturer and human rights defender.
Cepeda was preselected by Petro’s Historic Pact to preside over a second term of centre-left progressive government. De la Espriella, nicknamed El Tigre (the Tiger), secured 43.72% of the vote against Cepeda’s 40.92% (a difference of 600,000 votes).
Paloma Valencia — an aristocrat, a former president’s granddaughter and former right-wing president Álvaro Uribe supporter — secured 6.9% as Democratic Centre (CD) candidate, well below the 15% polls predicted. In the end, El Tigre’s tank steamrolled the CD.
The reality is that neither Colombia nor any of the other 35 Latin American and Caribbean countries are immune to the global neo-fascist far-right wave.
The country’s history attests to a longstanding right-wing presence in politics, which until May 31 had been occupied by Uribe’s CD (never centre-right to begin with). But de la Espriella’s vote also reflects the current regional and global climate.
His support came from bourgeois-oligarchic factions (agribusiness, the financial markets, big business and social media platforms), with de la Espriella swiftly overtaking Valencia as their darling.
The “Colombian Milei” was also backed by US President Donald Trump and far-right parties in government across the region.
Moreover, in a country where social media regulation is virtually non-existent, de la Espriella benefitted from a deluge of fake news — largely originating from the US and Spanish state — that spread blatant lies about Petro and Cepeda’s supposed links to guerrillas and organised crime.
Rounding off de la Espriella’s perfect storm was his hiring of a political marketing firm — the same one that worked on social influencer Pablo Marçal’s almost successful 2024 São Paulo mayoral campaign — and manipulation of Colombia’s, at best, fragile electoral system.
A semi-privatised electoral system
Colombia’s electoral system rests on three prongs.
The first is not an electoral court, but rather the National Electoral Council (CNE), which is composed of nine members appointed by parliament, with quotas filled through complex mathematical calculations that give a majority to whoever holds a majority in parliament.
The second is the Registrar’s Office, which functions as a large civil and electoral registry office. Only those who are registered can vote.
The third, and most questionable, leg of the tripod is the semi-privatised vote counting system. Counting of the about 120,000 ballot boxes is done manually, with party observers present.
However, once ballot box results are processed at the district, department (state) and national level, a tally is carried out by a private Colombian security firm, Thomas Greg & Sons, which does not disclose the source code for the count, meaning there is no way to verify its tally.
It is therefore not surprising that Petro questioned the May 31 results, and has said he will press ahead with his allegations of irregularities. This comes amid reports that de la Espriella co-opted company employees and Electoral Registry staff (as well as members of the police and armed forces).
According to the president’s social media posts, 800,000 votes for the neo-fascist candidate cannot be verified.
For their part, Cepeda and his campaign team decided on June 1 to endorse the result. According to Historic Pact leaders, this was to allow the election process to continue.
The contradiction between Petro and Cepeda’s position could reflect a rift between the two or a deliberate division of labour. Either way, the outlook for the second round remains in limbo.
A young progressive movement
Despite not achieving Cepeda’s aim of winning the first round, the Historic Pact and its allies in the Alliance for Life obtained the best-ever election result for Colombia’s left, surpassing Petro’s 2022 vote.
The strength of this coalition of left-wing and centre-left groups and individuals, along with social movements, can be explained by the momentum and unity forged as a result of the 2019 and 2021 social uprisings.
At the time, the country rebelled against then-president Iván Duque (CD) for his fiscal austerity policies and mishandling of peace agreements with the FARC [Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia] and ELN [National Liberation Army], as well as murder of social leaders and repression of protesters that occurred under his watch.
The movement managed to weather the pandemic, with political figures and organisations identified with the protests coming out stronger. Petro — who leads Humane Colombia, a force within the pact — won the 2022 presidential elections on the back of that wave.
His government, like all progressive centre-left movements, has been characterised by its strictly constitutional action — it has operated exclusively within the framework of the existing bourgeois-democratic regime.
At the same time, it has distinguished itself from similar governments, such as those of Lula da Silva (Brazil), Gabriel Boric (Chile) and Uruguay’s Frente Amplio (Broad Front), by calling popular mobilisation in support of key policies, such as with the 23% minimum wage rise at the end of last year.
Petro has governed with a parliamentary minority, but has managed to largely circumvent this by channelling significant portions of the national budget to projects submitted by neighbourhood associations and their regional federations.
Cepeda’s campaign, for its part, decided to capitalise on this tradition of neighbourhood organisation by focusing on a proactive policy-based campaign (rather than attacking opponents), grassroots mobilisation and the idea of a first-round victory (a debatable choice).
Historic Pact
The pact decided to register as a political party in December 2024 and obtained legal recognition in mid-last year.
This involved unifying the legal entities of the Alternative Democratic Pole (Cepeda’s former party), the Patriotic Union (backed by the Colombian Communist Party) and Humane Colombia (led by Petro and Senator Gloria Flórez).
Also part of the pact are a political faction that emerged from the National Organisation of Indigenous Peoples of Colombia and formerly known as the Alternative Indigenous and Social Movement; Democratic Unity (ecosocialist), the Colombian Labour Party (Maoist) and We Are All Colombia (affiliated to the Progressive International).
So too feminism and environmentalist forces — which have broad backing on the local left — as well as the significant Palanquero Black movement (the Colombian name for rural communities made up of former Black slaves and Afrocolombian people).
Colombia’s progressive centre-left movement is a young political force, with just one presidential term under its belt and still in the process of consolidating a unified party for its political project.
Given its youth — less experienced than even Mexico’s Morena party, not to mention Brazil’s Workers’ Party, Uruguay’s Broad Front and Argentina’s Peronist movement — the pact has maintained a certain reluctance towards direct confrontation.
Cepeda appears to be seeking to overcome this, challenging de la Espriella to a debate the day after the first round.
Its youthfulness is also reflected in an apparent overconfidence in the institutions of the 1993 Constitution, as evidenced by the lack of questioning of the electoral system prior to the results.
The second round
Cepeda’s alliance involved forces beyond the pact, including the indigenous movement, represented by vice-presidential candidate Aída Cilcuyé (of the Nasca people); the Green Alliance (a kind of Green Party); On The March (a party formed in 2018 by dissident liberals); independent dissident liberals; and even, according to the reactionary media, CD conservatives unhappy with Valencia. All share a commitment to peace after decades of armed conflict.
A left-wing victory in the second round vote on June 21 will be no easy feat, although the more experienced pact members and leaders believe Cepeda can win, provided that: (1) problems with vote monitoring are rectified, and communication and legal work on social networks and online platforms are strengthened; (2) even more young people are mobilised to reduce abstention; and (3) new key endorsements are secured.
Cepeda will have to secure new votes from supporters of centrist former Medellín mayor Sergio Fajardo, who received 1 million votes in last year’s primaries; officially negotiate with the Partido Liberal; and develop a strategy to win over CD sectors. Indeed, Valencia’s running mate, Juan Daniel Oviedo, has already declared he will not support or vote for de la Espriella.
The battle is not over. Young people have already begun to take to the streets in Bogotá. An exciting second half is still to come.
The clashes over the next 20 days in the streets and workplaces, as well as on social media, will not only determine Colombia’s next president — a neo-fascist or progressive — but also, to a large extent, the balance of forces in South America.
[Abridged from links.org.au.]