BOGOTÁ, Colombia — Iván Cepeda, an ally of outgoing Colombian President Gustavo Petro, refused to immediately accept the result of the first round of presidential voting after falling behind hard-line outsider Abelardo de la Espriella in Sunday’s election.
Cepeda and De la Espriella, who fashions himself as a President Trump-like “tough on crime” figure, are set to head to a runoff election in June. But Cepeda and Petro on Sunday night sowed doubt in the result and claimed — so far without evidence — that hundreds of thousands of votes were manipulated and that foreign actors interfered with the result.
Cepeda said he was waiting for electoral authorities to scrutinize the results before accepting the election.
“Only when the vote-counting commissions have fully clarified what happened will we comment on tonight’s results,” Cepeda said, though he acknowledged the vote was probably going to a second round.
Cepeda won 41% of the vote while De la Espriella won 44%, with 99.98% of the ballots counted, according to electoral authorities. Both fell short of the 50% needed to win in the first round but placed well ahead of third-place finisher Paloma Valencia. A candidate for Colombia’s establishment party who pitched herself as a centrist, Valencia got less than 7% of the vote.
Cepeda is a progressive senator and Petro ally who has promised to carry on a fraught push for “total peace.” He was consistently leading polls in the run-up to the Sunday vote, but in recent weeks De la Espriella rapidly gained support with a promise that he would crack down on armed groups.
The neck-and-neck result is likely to spell trouble for Cepeda in the runoff, where De la Espriella is expected to scoop up many of Valencia’s voters.
De la Espriella — a newcomer known as “El Tigre,” or the Tiger — has portrayed himself as a supporter of Trump, vowing to crack down on criminal groups.
“Let the United States of America and democratic parties monitor this runoff election. I will lead this battle; I will be Colombia’s best warrior,” De la Espriella said in an impassioned speech Sunday night, pounding his chest behind bulletproof glass in front of supporters.
Peace deals or a crackdown
Voters across Latin America are increasingly ditching leaders that pitched progressive policies aimed at addressing the root issues of conflict, such as lack of opportunities for young people and corruption. Instead, voters have increasingly turned to candidates promising heavy-handed security crackdowns.
The polarized vote comes as the Trump administration is playing a more aggressive role in Latin America than any U.S. government in decades, placing mounting pressure on countries such as Colombia, Mexico and Ecuador to crack down on crime.
The election has also underscored two sharply diverging visions for the future of peace in a country marked by years of conflict.
On one side, Cepeda has promised to continue Petro’s progressive agenda and a largely failed effort of trying to negotiate peace pacts with armed groups, following a plan that would probably sharply contrast with Trump’s vision for Latin America.
On the other side, De la Espriella has promised to fiercely crack down on criminal groups and build 10 megaprisons, following in a similar vein as El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, in his war on gangs, which has been beset by abuses, according to findings by human rights groups.
“Today’s election isn’t just important for us, it’s important for all of Latin America,” said Juan Acevedo, a 62-year-old sociologist walking out of a polling station in Colombia’s capital, Bogotá, on Sunday morning. “Whoever wins here will suggest to the region if progressive policies will continue or if things are going to return to the right.”
A referendum on Petro
The election — 10 years after Colombia signed a historic peace pact with guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC — is seen as a referendum on Petro’s policies.
The deal a decade ago had offered hope of breaking the nation’s vicious cycle of fighting between rebel groups and the government. But violence has since roared back, in part because armed groups have taken advantage of peace negotiations with Petro’s government to make territorial gains.
That came to a head in the lead-up to the election. Criminal groups have increasingly launched drone strikes, armed attacks have roiled the race, and in June last year, 39-year-old politician and presidential hopeful Miguel Uribe Turbay was fatally shot at a political rally.
Still, Cepeda and Petro have maintained strong support among many Colombians because of progressive policies advanced under Petro, such as boosting the minimum wage.
De la Espriella and Valencia have touted their affinity for Trump, though Valencia’s electoral loss dealt another blow to a once powerful political current known as Uribismo.
Divided on the way forward
Maria Eugenia, a 57-year-old seamstress, said Friday in downtown Bogotá that said she welcomed an all-out offensive on an expanding slate of criminal groups, regardless of the human cost.
While she approved of Petro’s pushes to improve the country’s medical infrastructure, she said she was voting for De la Espriella because violence in rural areas of the country had gotten out of hand. She said negotiating peace pacts was simply “rewarding” armed groups.
“Of course, whenever you come down with a heavy hand, there’s always going to be debate,” she said. “But some people are going to have to fall to clean up what needs to be cleaned.”
Others, such as Acevedo, the sociologist, said a security crackdown such as the one promoted by De la Espriella meant a return to past military campaigns that he said only reinforced Colombia’s cycle of violence.
He said he supports Cepeda, adding that although the government hasn’t done a perfect job — failing to pass ambitious reforms and follow through on promises to reduce violence — it was better to continue pushing forward with their political coalition’s efforts to take a different approach in addressing the country’s violence.
He added that his main critique of Petro’s administration was the power grabs made by criminal groups as they negotiated with the government. He said he hoped that if Cepeda won, he would strike a better balance between negotiating peace and maintaining control over those groups.
“We’re a country that has lived through 60 years of conflict,” Acevedo said. “The danger here is that we return to the times where everyone is saying that the only way to solve our problems is with bullets and more war.”
Janetsky and Suárez write for the Associated Press.
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