Colombia is heading to a presidential runoff on June 21 after far-right candidate Abelardo de la Espriella finished ahead of leftist senator Iván Cepeda in the first round on May 31, defying pre-election polling that had consistently placed the left-wing candidate in front.

With nearly all polling stations reporting, De la Espriella took approximately 43.7% of the vote to Cepeda's 41%, with the national registry office recording a gap of more than 650,000 votes between the two men. Conservative senator Paloma Valencia, who had been considered a serious contender, was eliminated after capturing fewer than 7%, and promptly announced her backing for De la Espriella, as did her mentor, former president Álvaro Uribe.

The result sets up a sharp ideological contest between two candidates separated by biography, politics and temperament. Fewer than six in ten of Colombia's 41mn eligible voters cast ballots on Sunday, leaving both candidates significant room to mobilise supporters ahead of the second round.

Fraud claims cloud the result

The first-round outcome was immediately contested. According to Reuters, Cepeda told supporters in Bogotá that irregularities may have occurred at an unspecified number of polling stations. "We are verifying, through our security and electoral observation mechanism, exactly how many are involved," he said, adding that his campaign would not issue a formal statement on the results until electoral commissions had fully reviewed the count.

President Gustavo Petro went further, telling reporters he did not recognise the preliminary results, alleging that votes had been recorded at polling stations without corresponding registered voters. Petro had earlier in the day called on the national registrar to ensure the state had full control over the electoral software used in the process, referencing an unfulfilled 2018 ruling by the Council of State.

De la Espriella rejected the hesitancy to accept the results. Speaking to thousands of supporters gathered on the banks of the Magdalena River in Barranquilla, he told the crowd: "We will defend the homeland with reason or with force." He also called on the United States government to monitor the second round. The election was observed by 26 international organisations with 1,500 monitors on the ground.

Abelardo de la Espriella: the outsider who upended the race

The scale of De la Espriella's first-round performance — more than 10.3mn votes — amounted to the biggest upset of Colombia's 2026 electoral cycle. Until five years ago, the 47-year-old criminal lawyer professed to detest politics. He built his reputation as one of Colombia's most prominent litigators, representing clients including David Murcia Guzmán, head of the country's largest pyramid scheme, and Álex Saab, extradited to the United States on charges of money laundering and acting as a financial front for the Maduro government in Venezuela.

Born in Bogotá in 1978 but raised in the coastal city of Montería, De la Espriella presents himself as a quintessential Caribbean: outgoing, theatrical and combative. His first law firm, De La Espriella Lawyers Enterprise, founded in 2002, became synonymous with high-profile and controversial cases. He also advised paramilitary leaders during the Santa Fe de Ralito demobilisation process, negotiating reduced sentences in exchange for disarmament.

He studied law at Sergio Arboleda University, where he credits professors including Álvaro Gómez Hurtado with instilling the conservative foundations of his political project — foundations that, critics note, sit awkwardly alongside his earlier defence of gay adoption rights, a position he has since abandoned. He attributes the shift to fatherhood and a religious conversion following the death of a close relative.

His campaign drew on a potent mix of outsider symbolism and hard-right substance: megaprisons, a proposed military alliance with the United States and Israel, tax cuts for businesses, deep reductions in public spending and a forthright hostility to Petro's legacy. An admirer of US President Donald Trump, De La Espriella modelled his pitch explicitly on Nayib Bukele of El Salvador and Javier Milei of Argentina, positioning himself as the antithesis of the incumbent government. He claims to have self-financed his campaign without donations from parties or large corporations, though that assertion could not be independently verified.

His flamboyant style has long attracted accusations of ostentation. He holds Italian citizenship and spent periods in Florence, where he ran rum and wine businesses. For the runoff, he enters with a structural advantage: Valencia's votes and Uribe's endorsement consolidate the right-wing electorate behind a single candidate.

Iván Cepeda: the left's standard-bearer, now on the back foot

Cepeda had been widely expected to top the first round and potentially approach an outright majority. Instead, he finished second, now facing the steeper task of broadening his coalition beyond the left to win a majority on June 21.

Born in Bogotá in 1962 to two prominent communist leaders, Cepeda's life has been shaped by political violence and exile. At the age of three, his family went into exile in Cuba and later Czechoslovakia. He returned to Colombia as a teenager, became a student activist and joined the Communist Youth at 13. At 19, following his mother's death, he returned to Europe, studying philosophy in Sofia, Bulgaria, where he says he began to grow disillusioned with the communist model.

His father, senator Manuel Cepeda, was assassinated by paramilitaries in August 1994. Iván came across the scene while travelling by bus to his teaching post at Javeriana University. The murder prompted further exile — this time in France, where he completed a master's degree in international humanitarian law — and defined his subsequent career as an advocate for victims of the conflict.

He entered electoral politics in 2010, winning a seat in the Chamber of Representatives before moving to the Senate in 2014. It was there that his years-long confrontation with Uribe, culminating in a criminal conviction against the former president, later overturned on appeal, cemented his standing as the Colombian left's most prominent figure.

On policy, Cepeda has promised to extend healthcare coverage, pursue land reform including transfers to victims of the internal conflict, and increase the tax burden on the wealthiest Colombians, while pressing ahead with peace negotiations with armed groups.

Cepeda now confronts liabilities that will define the runoff. His authorship of Petro's "total peace" strategy, widely acknowledged as having failed to disarm armed groups and linked to a surge in drone attacks, is a gift to his opponent. His ties to the FARC, including his role in securing the release of commanders who subsequently returned to armed conflict, remain deeply contentious. His refusal to debate centrist candidates and his scripted campaign style attracted criticism for failing to connect beyond a committed left-wing base.

He is married to Pilar Rueda, described by sources within the Pacto Histórico as a significant influence on both the candidate and the campaign. She works as an adviser to the Special Jurisdiction for Peace. Cepeda has no children.

The road to June 21

Pre-election surveys by AtlasIntel gave De la Espriella 50% against Cepeda's 41.3% in a hypothetical runoff, a projection that now looks prescient given the first round’s result. With Valencia's voters likely to consolidate behind De la Espriella and low first-round turnout leaving room for mobilisation on both sides, Cepeda faces the acute challenge of winning over centrist voters who backed candidates such as former Bogotá mayor Claudia López and Sergio Fajardo, neither of whom has yet declared a preference.