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A voter wearing a national soccer team jersey waits for his turn to cast his ballot during the runoff election in Barranquilla, Colombia, Sunday, June 21, 2026.<\/p>\n
Ivan Valencia\/AP Photo\/Ivan Valencia<\/p>\n
Presidential candidate Abelardo de la Espriella of the opposition Defenders of the Motherland movement arrives to vote with his family during the runoff election in Barranquilla, Colombia, Sunday, June 21, 2026.<\/p>\n
Ivan Valencia\/AP Photo\/Ivan Valencia<\/p>\n
A voter waits in line with her dog, which is wearing a Colombia soccer team jersey and has its face painted as a tiger, at a polling station during the runoff election in Barranquilla, Colombia, Sunday, June 21, 2026.<\/p>\n
Ivan Valencia\/AP Photo\/Ivan Valencia<\/p>\n
Colombian President Gustavo Petro shows a ballot during the runoff election in Bogota, Colombia, Sunday, June 21, 2026.<\/p>\n
Fernando Vergara\/AP Photo\/Fernando Vergara<\/p>\n
Voters line up during the runoff presidential election in Barranquilla, Colombia, Sunday, June 21, 2026.<\/p>\n
Ivan Valencia\/AP Photo\/Ivan Valencia<\/p>\n
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) \u2014 Deeply divided voters in Colombia are choosing their next president in a runoff Sunday that pits a progressive against a conservative outsider, with both candidates tapping into fears of a renewed internal conflict.<\/p>\n
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The options before voters are business owner and lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella and Iv\u00e1n Cepeda, a lawmaker and heir to the political movement of outgoing President Gustavo Petro, the nation\u2019s first leftist leader. The two defeated nine other contenders in a May 31 vote.<\/p>\n
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Both are pitching strategies that they say will prevent the South American country from experiencing the nonstop merciless violence, such as car bombs, kidnappings, disappearances and forced displacements, that Colombians lived with in previous decades.<\/p>\n
De la Espriella is proposing a heavy-handed approach that has earned him the endorsement of U.S. President Donald Trump. Cepeda is promising to continue Petro\u2019s efforts, including attempts at establishing dialogue with multiple illegal armed groups even though those efforts have largely failed.<\/p>\n
The two candidates also are offering differing solutions for the country\u2019s struggling health system, ballooning public debt and entrenched corruption.<\/p>\n
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\u201cRight now, what worries me is the polarization that exists between us: there are two very extreme sides, and the violence is concerning,\u201d John Manrique, a lawyer in the capital, Bogota, said as he walked his dog.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I hope is that people accept who won,\u201d he added. \u201cLet\u2019s accept it, regardless of the side, and try to reach a social consensus. \u2026 Let\u2019s not go out and fight.\u201d<\/p>\n
President again sows doubts in the results<\/p>\n
In the first round, Cepeda earned 41% of the vote, while de la Espriella garnered 44%, according to official results. Petro, without evidence, sowed doubts in the results after Cepeda, who had consistently lead polls ahead of the May vote, did not win outright and even finished behind de la Espriella.<\/p>\n
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Petro reiterated his allegations on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe must protect the vote, undoubtedly,\u201d he said shortly before polls opened.<\/p>\n
His movement will provide details about \u201call the accounts and funds that were transacted from abroad,\u201d Petro added. Actors, whom he did not identify, \u201ctried to enslave the people of Colombia by taking away their freedom to decide.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than 41 million people are eligible to vote. Polls will remain open until 4 p.m.<\/p>\n
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Yolanda Hern\u00e1ndez, 49, voted early Sunday before she started selling black-ink pens outside a Bogota voting center. Clients, she said, buy the pens because ink cannot be erased from paper ballots, which reduces the possibility of fraud.<\/p>\n
Hern\u00e1ndez, who recycles trash for a living, voted for Petro in 2022, but cast her ballot for de la Espriella this time. While she acknowledged that Petro was unable to deliver on promises meant to help the poor because of congressional gridlock, she said Colombia cannot afford another four years under his vision for the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want change in Colombia because it\u2019s always the same violence, always the same thing,\u201d Hern\u00e1ndez said. \u201c(Petro) said he was going to lower the cost of services, that he was going to lower the price of food, and everything is more expensive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fighting between rebel groups plagues the nation<\/p>\n
The election comes 10 years after Colombia signed a historic peace pact with guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, that had offered hope to break the nation\u2019s vicious cycle of fighting between rebel groups and the government.<\/p>\n
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But violence has since roared back, particularly as most rebel groups abandoned their ideologically driven fight for the financial benefits of drug trafficking.<\/p>\n
Last year, authorities recorded 14,780 homicides, the most since at least 2015 and driven by clashes among illegal armed groups. Among those killed was conservative presidential hopeful Miguel Uribe. Extortions have also soared, reaching 13,417 cases in 2025, more than double the number tallied in 2015.<\/p>\n
De la Espriella, a political newcomer nicknamed \u201cThe Tiger,\u201d has promised to fiercely go after criminals and build 10 mega-prisons, emulating the policies of El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele that have lowered homicide rates but have fueled accusations of human rights abuses.<\/p>\n
Cepeda wants to carry on Petro’s fraught signature plan to achieve \u201ctotal peace\u201d by negotiating pacts with guerrillas and criminal gangs. The heavily criticized strategy that Petro kicked off in 2022 took until Thursday to see the first armed group \u2014 one with about 100 members \u2014 give up its weapons and begin a resettlement process that will lead to their reintegration into civilian life. Colombia’s illegal groups have more than 27,000 members.<\/p>\n
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Fernando Lozano, 34, decided to vote for the first time in a decade because of the vastly different proposals between Cepeda and de la Espriella, particularly the latter’s intentions to face off with armed groups.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnyone would think it\u2019s not a bad thing to be able to end all this once and for all. But it\u2019s not as easy as it seems,\u201d Lozano said, adding that the combative approach already failed before and could only lead to more violence if tried again. \u201cYou can\u2019t just go there and confront them and expect everything to be resolved in six months. That takes years.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lead-up to the runoff has seen an increase in verbal attacks between the candidates as well as accusations of fraud, vote-buying and intimidation.<\/p>\n
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Cepeda filed a complaint with the Colombian Attorney General\u2019s Office and the International Criminal Court against de la Espriella, accusing him of having ties to paramilitary groups. De la Espriella has denied the accusation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A voter wearing a national soccer team jersey waits for his turn to cast his ballot during the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44040,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[389,19970,194,16036,19978,363,19971,15722,16042,1561,2317,2314,11673,4741,95,19979],"class_list":["post-44098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-valencia","tag-colombia","tag-colombia-presidential-election-espriella-cepeda-petro","tag-donald-trump","tag-el-salvador","tag-fernando-lozano","tag-gustavo-petro","tag-john-manrique","tag-miguel-uribe-turbay","tag-nayib-bukele","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100373-mc-complete-state-national","tag-product-30598-ap-national-news-report-a-wire","tag-product-32501-ap-online-latin-america-and-caribbean-news","tag-product-46986-ap-online-top-stories","tag-valencia","tag-yolanda-hernandez"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}