Colombia elected conservative lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella president on Sunday, heralding a swing back to business-friendly and pro-US policies after four years of leftist rule.
The candidate's narrow victory over Senator Iván Cepeda - barring any surprise from the official judicial review of the vote - capped a bitter campaign between radically different visions of the economy, the war on drugs, the oil industry, and relations with US President Donald Trump.
The preliminary count was immediately challenged by Cepeda's ally, President Gustavo Petro, in a sign of how polarized the nation is. Both Petro and Cepeda said they would only recognise the slower, legally binding process.
If that is upheld, De la Espriella, 47, will have little margin for error as he grapples with a gaping fiscal hole and a security crisis fueled by record cocaine production. The political novice, known for his belligerent style and coarse language, will face a fractured congress, and a risk of unrest from Cepeda's most radical supporters.
With 99.9% of polling stations reporting, De la Espriella had 49.7% of the vote to Cepeda's 48.7%, in one of the closest results in the nation's history.
"Given how closely contested this election was, Colombia is entering a very challenging period," said Sergio Guzmán, founder of Colombia Risk Analysis.
The final, confirmed result is expected toward the end of the week, a National Electoral Council official said. The official tally begins at the municipal level before moving on Tuesday to regional commissions and, finally, the national stage. Ballots are reviewed in the presence of witnesses and party representatives.
Even so, congratulations quickly arrived from fellow Trump fan Javier Milei of Argentina, as well as from the US president himself. In a post on X, Milei said that "freedom is advancing across all Latin America and there is no turning back."
De la Espriella, who is also a US citizen, would take office on Aug. 7, after electoral authorities sign off on the result. He has pledged to round up criminals in El Salvador-style mega prisons, bomb the camps of cocaine-trafficking militias, and reopen the nation to new oil exploration including by allowing fracking. He was endorsed by Trump, who pledged "total support" for Colombia if he won.
Cepeda had pledged to tax the rich, redistribute land to poor farmers and prevent fracking.
De la Espriella had referred to Colombian leftists as a "mangy plague" who should be treated "not as adversaries, but as enemies." However, in his victory speech he was conciliatory, saying that he would respect the constitution, govern on behalf of all Colombians and wouldn't persecute anyone.
Boarded-up Storefronts
In Bogota, some businesses reinforced their storefront windows amid fears of protests.
A member of the military stands guard outside a polling station during the runoff presidential election in Bogota on June 21. Photographer: Santiago Mesa/Bloomberg
Photo Credit: (Photo: Bloomberg)
At a gathering of Cepeda's campaign, some of his supporters chanted defiantly and clung to the hope that they might still win. "If we have to take to the streets again, we'll do it," said Giselle Pinzón, 22, a psychology student, weeping as she spoke.
Petro, however, urged his supporters to avoid confrontation.
"There are fascist groups waiting for a confrontation today," Petro said in a post on X as the official vote count advanced. "Let's not give them what they want."
De la Espriella's supporters celebrated, honking car horns around the streets of the capital. He joins a group of Latin American populists who threw their lot in with Trump - Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, El Salvador's Nayib Bukele and Ecuador's Daniel Noboa.
Market Reaction
The nation's stocks, bonds and currency are likely to rally when markets open on Monday, since De la Espriella is popular among investors, who feared that Cepeda would undermine central bank independence and run up debt.
Senator Ivan Cepeda speaks at a polling station in Bogota on Sunday.
Photo Credit: (Photo: Bloomberg)
De la Espriella, who refers to himself as "the tiger," grew up in the hot, cattle-ranching region on the nation's Caribbean coast, an area which has been badly affected by the nation's civil conflict.
He ran as an outsider taking on the nation's political elite, and often appears wearing brightly colored jackets, pocket squares and a fedora, a strikingly different style from that of most Colombian politicians.
High-Profile Clients
He achieved national fame as a defense attorney in some of Colombia's most high-profile cases.
Among his best-known clients was Alex Saab, a businessman and close ally of the Venezuelan regime, who was extradited to the US last month to face money laundering charges.
He also represented Natalia Paris, one of Colombia's most famous models; David Murcia, who was sentenced to prison in the US for money laundering; and Dania Londoño, the woman at the center of the 2012 scandal in which Secret Service agents consorted with prostitutes in Cartagena ahead of a visit to the city by US President Barack Obama.
He also defended politicians accused of links to cocaine-trafficking militias of the kind he now wants to round up in jails.
Early in his career, when he was still in his 20s, De la Espriella founded a nonprofit that was involved in the peace process between far-right paramilitary factions and the government.
This brought him into contact with some of Colombia's most dangerous people, including several classified as terrorists by the US such as "Macaco," the alias of a man who was then a contender to be Colombia's biggest cocaine trafficker.
When challenged about these relationships, De la Espriella has consistently maintained that his contact with such people was rooted in his involvement in the peace process.
Voters wait in line to cast ballots at a polling station in Barranquilla on June 21. Photographer: Carlos Parra Rios/Bloomberg
Photo Credit: (Photo: Bloomberg)
Still, critics have used it to question his tough-on-crime posture, and Cepeda is seeking to have him prosecuted for alleged crimes including "financing terrorism."
Sunday's presidential vote follows congressional elections in March, when Petro and Cepeda's Historic Pact coalition won 25 of 108 senate seats, making it the chamber's largest bloc.
About 41 million Colombians were eligible to vote, including citizens living abroad, who began casting ballots earlier this week at Colombian consulates.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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