With an aggressive campaign and a narrow margin, Abelardo de la Espriella has won the runoff election, paving the way for an intensification of the class struggle.
With a margin of less than 1%, the far-right candidate Abelardo de la Espriella emerged victorious in the second round of Colombia’s presidential election, according to preliminary results. He defeated Iván Cepeda, the candidate backed by current President Gustavo Petro and the broad left-wing coalition, the ‘Pacto Histórico’. Cepeda and Petro have not yet recognised the result of these preliminary results, while they wait for the electoral council’s final results, which may take several days.
Espriella has promised to “gut” the left, kill criminals like “cockroaches,” and cut the public budget by 40%. Far from being a recipe for “social peace” and an end to crime, as he promises, this policy will bring increased repression and state violence, as well as an intensification of the class struggle.
The social movements that have shaken the country since 2019 and led to the election of the country’s first left-wing president must rise to the challenge. To do so, they must learn the lessons of recent years and go beyond approaches that seek a solution within the framework of the current system, which is rotten to the core.
Espriella surprised everyone by winning the first round on 31 May, relegating the candidate of the traditional right, Paloma Valencia, to a distant third place. He presented himself as an outsider, someone not part of the political establishment, running against the “same old faces.” Indeed, he has never held an elected office. He is a millionaire businessman and lawyer who built his career representing infamous celebrities, paramilitaries, drug traffickers, and one of the masterminds behind a massive financial pyramid scheme. He also played a key role in the 2012 acquittal of an evangelical pastor accused of abuse by 20 women, whom he accused of seeking “social advancement.”
His victory in the second round was narrow and boosted by record voter turnout. Iván Cepeda actually received more votes than Gustavo Petro in the 2022 elections. The electoral defeat exposed the limits of Petro’s policy of class conciliation, which did not seek to challenge the elite’s power structures, thereby limiting the scope of negotiations and pressure for social reforms.
This was shown even more decisively in attempts to challenge the high levels of violence, especially in rural areas. Petro’s agrarian reform policy was limited to the purchase of land for distribution to peasants, Indigenous peoples and Afro-descendants, without altering the agrarian power structures. This exacerbated the limitations of the attempt to implement “Total Peace”—a proposal for negotiated disarmament with armed groups operating in rural areas.
Resist Espriella’s Reactionary Agenda
Espriella’s campaign focused on the issues of violence and corruption, which was a decisive factor in his victory. But his policies will not solve these problems—on the contrary. Espriella modeled his proposals on the policies of Nayib Bukele in El Salvador, promising to build 10 mega-prisons and legalize gun ownership, claiming that he will take control of the country within three months. However, Bukele’s policy of heavy-handed state repression—which has put 3% of the adult male population behind bars and temporarily lowered crime rates through a crackdown that extends to any political opposition—will not be easily replicated in Colombia. The country is 54 times larger than El Salvador, has the second-largest population in South America, has faced decades of internal armed conflict, and vast parts of the country are covered by mountains and jungles.
Contrary to what he promised, Espriella’s policies are likely to exacerbate social conflicts due to his pledge to cut social spending by 40%, as well as his plan to expand fossil fuel extraction by allowing fracking and rolling back environmental regulations.
Espriella’s base in parliament is even more insignificant than that of Javier Milei at the start of his own administration in Argentina. He ran as an independent, backed by the tiny “National Salvation Movement,” which has only one representative and four senators. Although he promises to issue 90 executive orders, in the same vein as Trump and Milei, Espriella will depend on traditional right-wing parties to govern, which will ensure the continuation of endemic corruption.
Espriella’s victory is welcomed by Trump, who gains yet another important ally for his “Shield of the Americas”—an initiative that, under the pretext of combating “narco-terrorism,” aims to promote the influence and power of US imperialism.
The unions and social movements must begin preparing urgently to resist Espriella’s attacks starting on his first day in office, 7 August. These movements need to learn from the protests against far-right governments in Chile and Argentina, as well as from the popular uprising that has shaken Bolivia in recent months. We must unify the struggles and build them through democratic, grassroots structures in order not to leave control in the hands of bureaucratic leaderships that tend to seek agreements and truces with the government. To carry the struggle through to its conclusion and defeat the far right once and for all, we must build a socialist alternative against the capitalist system as a whole, which is the true source of these monsters.
