A far-right lawyer and Donald Trump admirer will go head-to-head against leftwing senator Iván Cepeda in the race to be Colombia’s next president after he won a surprise victory in the first round of voting.
De la Espriella advocates ending Petro’s “total peace” policy of negotiating the dismantling of criminal groups—of which Cepeda is widely regarded as the architect—and replacing it with a mano dura (iron-fist) strategy inspired above all by El Salvador’s populist strongman Bukele, who has imprisoned at least 2 percent of his country’s adult population as part of a controversial crackdown on gangs.
After a wave of victories by far-right candidates in recent years in Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Bolivia and Honduras, Colombia remains one of the few countries in Latin America still governed by the left, alongside Mexico and Brazil, which will hold its own presidential election in October.
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