Abelardo de la Espriella, a hard-Right millionaire lawyer and self-proclaimed “outsider”, has won Colombia’s presidential race, according to the initial vote count.
De La Espriella began gaining popularity early in the year with his tough-on-crime discourse and on Sunday night narrowly defeated Ivan Cepeda, a Left-wing senator, in a fiercely contested run-off .
The rope-thin victory margin stands at less than 1 per cent of the vote – the equivalent of some 245,000 votes – making it one of the closest presidential contests in Colombian history.
With 99.65 per cent of ballots counted in the preliminary vote tally, Mr de la Espriella had secured 49.65 per cent and Mr Cepeda 48.7 per cent.
Mr Cepeda, 63 has refused to concede, telling supporters his team would challenge results from more than 30,000 voting stations.
Mr de la Espriella stood behind bullet-proof glass to speak to supporters in Barranquilla, northern Colombia, telling them: “I appear before you tonight to announce the most important news of my life – the Colombian people have entrusted me with the supreme honour of serving them as their next president of the Republic of Colombia.
“I will govern for all Colombians … there will be no retaliation, no persecution, because in a democracy there are no irreconcilable enemies.”
The victory marks a sharp rightward turn in Colombian politics after four years of Left-wing rule under Gustavo Petro.
Mr Petro, who could not run for re-election because of Colombia’s constitutional one-term limit for presidents, backed Mr Cepeda as his successor. The result also adds to a growing list of Right-wing electoral successes across Latin America.
This presidential campaign marked Mr de la Espriella’s first run for office. The 47-year-old built his campaign around promises to crush organised crime, restore security and dismantle what he describes as a bloated state.
His victory will be welcomed by conservatives across the region who see him as the latest in a new generation of hard-line populists.
Nicknamed El Tigre – The Tiger – because of his combative style, Mr de la Espriella has been compared to a political hybrid of Mr Trump, Argentina’s Javier Milei and El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele.
Like the US president, he presents himself as a wealthy businessman capable of shaking up the political establishment. Like Mr Milei, he promises to cut the size of the government, and like Mr Bukele he has built his campaign around law and order.
Throughout his presidential campaign, Mr de la Espriella leaned heavily into the El Tigre nickname – sharing AI-generated images of himself as a fanged tiger and presenting himself as the only candidate willing to tackle a resurgence in violence. Read more at
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