Editorial
Colombia has once again done what it has repeatedly done throughout its turbulent modern history: it has swung the political pendulum with extraordinary force. After decades of guerrilla warfare, paramilitary violence, drug trafficking, failed negotiations, broken promises, and deep social inequality, Colombians have narrowly chosen Abelardo de la Espriella, a wealthy lawyer and political outsider who built his campaign around security, nationalism, and confrontation with criminal groups. If the final electoral process confirms the preliminary result, Colombia will not simply have changed presidents; it will have rejected one political philosophy and embraced another.
This election is being described internationally as another victory for the global conservative wave, especially because de la Espriella received open support from Donald Trump and built a political identity that echoes the language of strong borders, law-and-order politics, and hostility toward left-wing governments. But the Colombian story is much older and much darker than a simple Trump versus Petro battle. Colombia’s political DNA has always been shaped by a single unresolved question: what comes first — social justice or state authority?
For supporters of de la Espriella, the answer is obvious. A country cannot redistribute wealth, reform healthcare, or protect vulnerable communities if criminals, guerrillas, and illegal armed groups control territory. They look at Colombia’s recent security problems and argue that Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” strategy underestimated the reality of armed organizations that understand negotiation as an opportunity rather than surrender. They point to rising extortion, illegal economies, and the expansion of armed factions as proof that the state became too weak.
But Colombia has heard this argument before.
In 2002, after the collapse of peace talks between President Andrés Pastrana and the FARC guerrillas, Colombians turned dramatically toward Álvaro Uribe, whose message was simple: defeat the armed groups first, negotiate later. Uribe’s Democratic Security policy weakened FARC and restored state control over many regions. But the same era produced some of Colombia’s darkest controversies, including the “false positives” scandal, in which innocent civilians were killed by soldiers and falsely presented as guerrilla casualties. Colombia’s history offers a warning: a strong state can restore order, but a state without restraint can create new wounds.
This is the historical shadow following de la Espriella into office.
The irony of Colombia’s politics is that the country often votes against the trauma it is currently experiencing. When violence dominates daily life, Colombians choose security. When inequality dominates public anger, Colombians choose reform. In 2022, they elected Gustavo Petro, a former M-19 guerrilla who promised to transform a system many Colombians believed had ignored the poor and rural communities for generations. Petro’s victory was historic because he became Colombia’s first left-wing president.
But history is cruel to reformers. Citizens often judge governments not by their long-term ambitions but by their immediate realities. A farmer facing extortion, a shop owner paying criminal groups for protection, or a family afraid of armed organizations does not experience politics as an academic debate about structural inequality. They experience it as fear.
This is where de la Espriella found his opening.
His political rise is unusual because he did not emerge from the traditional Colombian party machine. He came from the world of law, media visibility, and controversy. His supporters see him as an outsider who can destroy the old political establishment. His critics see a populist figure who has mastered political theater and transformed anger into electoral power.
The danger for Colombia is that anger is a powerful fuel but a poor governing strategy.
Campaigns built on punishment are easier than governments built on solutions. It is easy to promise mega-prisons, military operations, and an aggressive war against criminal organizations. It is far harder to rebuild rural institutions, create legal economic opportunities in coca-growing regions, reform corrupt local governments, and convince young people that joining armed groups is not their only path to survival.
Colombia’s conflict was never only about criminals. It was also about geography, poverty, land ownership, exclusion, and the absence of the state. The FARC did not survive for more than fifty years only because it had guns; it survived because millions of Colombians lived in places where the national government was barely present.
This is the trap waiting for Colombia’s new president. If he focuses only on force, he may win battles but lose the war. Colombia has already learned that killing commanders does not automatically create peace. New armed groups replace old ones when the conditions that created violence remain unchanged.
The narrowness of this election is itself the most important message. Colombia did not overwhelmingly reject Petro’s vision. Nearly half the country still wanted continuation of his project. A president who wins by a razor-thin margin cannot govern as if half the nation disappeared overnight. The country is not united behind a revolution from the right; it is deeply divided over what kind of future it wants.
The greatest test of Abelardo de la Espriella will not be whether he can speak the language of strength. Many Colombian leaders have done that. The real test will be whether he can build institutions strong enough that Colombia no longer needs permanent political warriors promising salvation.
Colombia has spent seventy years searching for the perfect formula: peace without weakness, security without abuse, growth without exclusion. Every generation produces a new leader claiming to have the answer.
The question is whether Colombia has elected another chapter in its cycle of reaction — or whether this time it has finally found a way out of it.
