Colombia's 'Tiger' surges ahead in presidential race with hardline crime agenda
BOGOTÁ, Colombia (AP) — In a stunning first-round result that reshuffled the political deck, bombastic pro-Trump lawyer Aberaldo de la Espriella stormed to the lead in Colombia’s presidential race Sunday, riding a wave of public anger over crime that has swept across Latin America. With nearly 44% of the vote, de la Espriella, who calls himself “El Tigre,” outpaced progressive Senator Iván Cepeda, who had topped every pre-election poll but finished with less than 41%.
The outcome sent immediate ripples through the establishment. Cepeda and his ally, President Gustavo Petro, questioned the vote count late Sunday night, though they stopped short of presenting specific evidence. The two now head to a June 21 runoff, where de la Espriella is widely expected to pick up support from other conservative-leaning voters who backed also-rans in the first round.
“De la Espriella won the first round—that’s a clear shift in public sentiment that is very hard to reverse,” said political analyst Sergio Guzmán. “He now emerges as the clear favorite to win the presidency.”
De la Espriella, a flamboyant former lawyer who represented ex-President Álvaro Uribe and later the controversial Alex Saab, has never held elected office. He spent years living a lavish life in Italy before deciding to run, pitching himself as an outsider bent on crushing crime. “I will wipe out narcoterrorism like cockroaches, like rats,” he told The Associated Press in the campaign’s final days. “I will unleash upon them the wrath of God never seen before.” His platform includes building 10 mega-prisons and closely aligning with President Donald Trump while borrowing from El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele’s war on gangs—a model that has slashed homicide rates but drawn criticism for human rights abuses.
Yet replicating Bukele’s success in Colombia, a nation more than 50 times larger than El Salvador and home to multiple armed groups battling for territory, is nearly impossible, analysts warn. The region’s growing embrace of the “Bukele model” reflects a broader rejection of progressive policies that sought to tackle root causes like poverty and corruption. De la Espriella’s support cuts across class lines: from Yolanda Peréz, a 64-year-old coffee seller in Bogotá who winked—“I’m thinking of voting for El Tigre”—to Miguel Maheca, a 20-year-old first-time voter who grinned, “Love isn’t what’s going to keep us safe.”
The polarized vote comes as the Trump administration pushes Latin American nations harder than any U.S. government in decades, pressuring Colombia, Mexico and Ecuador to get tough on crime. For Cepeda, a progressive senator who promised to continue Petro’s “total peace” negotiations with guerrillas, the road ahead looks steep. Their political movement emerged from a fierce backlash against the Uribe-era militarized offensive that led to thousands of civilian deaths in the “false positives” scandal. De la Espriella, Cepeda charged Sunday, “represents a return to paramilitary politics and drug-trafficking—a mafia-run, plutocratic and corrupt past.”
Petro, a former rebel who swept to power in 2022 on a wave of support from rural, Indigenous and poorer Colombians, now sees his coalition cornered. “This is De la Espriella’s election to lose,” wrote Renata Segura, director of International Crisis Group’s Latin America and the Caribbean Program. “Cepeda thought he could win by appealing squarely to the left, and that proved a massive mistake. How he pivots in the next month will determine if he has any chance.”
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