Lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella won Colombia’s presidential election after a very tight race against left-wing senator Iván Cepeda, according to preliminary official results with more than 99% of ballots counted. De la Espriella, 47, took about 50% of the vote and promised to move Colombia’s embassy to Jerusalem. The victory returns Colombia to conservative rule after four years under Gustavo Petro, the country’s first leftist president.
Petro accused Israel of intervening in the election to help the right-wing candidate. De la Espriella said, “We defeated the regime,” while Cepeda said he would accept the preliminary results and wait for the count to finish, stressing that his camp remains a major force in Colombian politics. U.S. President Donald Trump congratulated the winner and said he had won “big,” and Secretary of State Marco Rubio also spoke with him, saying the Trump administration expects close cooperation with the new government.
Israel welcomed the outcome as well. Foreign Minister Gideon Saar wrote that he expects to work with the president-elect to revive ties between Israel and Colombia and said he had invited de la Espriella to visit Israel. Trump’s public support for de la Espriella was a major boost during the campaign.
De la Espriella ran an aggressive, highly unusual campaign built around AI videos with tigers, hard-line messaging, and a promise to restore security, fight corruption, and rescue the economy from what he called leftist destruction. He echoed the styles of Nayib Bukele and Javier Milei, pledged large prisons, vowed to combat “gender ideology,” and promised to put God and family at the center of public life. He also said he would pursue criminals and crush “narco-terrorists,” a phrase borrowed from Trump. His running mate was former commerce minister José Manuel Restrepo, who helped ease concerns about de la Espriella’s lack of political experience.
The campaign unfolded amid unusual violence, including the killing of another conservative presidential candidate and two campaign workers. De la Espriella campaigned in a protective vest and sometimes behind bulletproof glass. His win came in a record-turnout runoff and by the narrowest margin seen under Colombia’s two-round system, which has been in place for more than three decades.
