Just days remain until the first round of Colombia’s presidential election on May 31, and millions of citizens still haven’t decided which of the 12 candidates to vote for.
In Catatumbo, a region on the border with Venezuela, women have been giving birth at home for months. It is not for lack of hospitals but because they are afraid to take the roads and get caught in the crossfire between two guerrilla groups. Babies take months to be registered, farmers fear stepping on mines, and children hide when they see drones flying overhead laden with explosives. Those who stayed do not venture out and live locked up as if during a pandemic. Those who could leave fled, and the region has lost nearly 100,000 residents over the past year. “We are not part of this war, but we are in it,” a community leader told EL PAÍS, fearing he could be killed. This Sunday, Colombia holds the first round of its presidential elections. It does so with that war in the background, and with three other deep wounds that no candidate has fully explained how they intend to heal.
© Santiago Saldarriaga (AP)
Bogotá, Colombia – Iván Cepeda and Abelardo de la Espriella, two of the frontrunners to be the next Colombian president, have announced their choices for vice president following Sunday’s legislative elections and presidential primaries.
Cepeda selected Aida Quilcué, a senator and Indigenous leader, to join him on the ticket for the left-wing Historic Pact (Pacto Historico), which won the most congressional seats on Sunday. Meanwhile, de la Espriella, a hard-right outsider, announced today that he will run alongside ex-finance minister José Manuel Restrepo.
But the big winner in Sunday’s primary, right-wing Paloma Valencia of the Democratic Center (Centro Democrático) party, has yet to announce her running mate amid mounting speculation.
On Monday, Cepeda formally announced Aida Quilcué as his running mate. A leader of the Nasa Indigenous group, Quilcué has a record as a staunch defender of human rights and as an advocate for ethnic minorities in Colombia.
She was integral to the negotiation of the ethnic chapter of the 2016 peace accord with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and has been a key figure in Colombia’s Indigenous rights movement.
Last month, Quilcué made national headlines when she was kidnapped in her home state of Cauca, in the Colombian Pacific, by dissidents of the FARC.
Miguel Jaramillo Luján, a Colombian political strategist, described Cepeda’s choice of Quilcué as a “symbolic” one which entrenches his stance as an advocate of peace and human rights.
But the analyst also noted that the selection may not be the most politically savvy move: “From an electoral standpoint, I believe that this is a concentric circle and does not add much electoral power to Iván Cepeda, who I think is acting symbolically but overly prideful in this decision,” Jaramillo told Latin America Reports.
Abelardo de la Espriella, a criminal defense attorney, has styled himself as an anti-establishment political outsider. His traditional values, tough on crime campaign has been successful so far, regularly placing him in second place in presidential polls.
Today, ‘The Tiger’, as he has styled himself, announced his running mate: José Manuel Restrepo.
Restrepo is an economist at the Rosario University in Bogotá and served as President Ivan Duque’s Minister of Finance and Public Credit from May 2021 to August 2022, running the country’s finances during the COVID-19 pandemic. Before that he was Minister of Commerce, Industry, and Tourism beginning in 2018.
“I think the selection of José Manuel Restrepo… represents an attempt to counterbalance de la Espriella, who has no experience in public office,” said Jaramillo.
While de la Espriella is an outsider, he must take on Cepeda and Valencia, both sitting senators since 2014. Restrepo burnishes the criminal lawyer’s bid by adding proven governance credentials.
When announcing his running mate on Tuesday, de la Espriella said: “My choice of vice president was not driven by political calculation… it was clear to me that a renowned academic, an outstanding economist, and a highly qualified former minister and technician will undoubtedly be the best travel companion.”
On Sunday, Paloma Valencia received over 45% of votes in presidential primaries, although Cepeda and de la Espriella were both absent from the contest.
Valencia’s win, as well as her Democratic Center party’s strong showing in legislative elections – winning the second highest number of seats – bolsters her position in the presidential race, according to experts.
“From the [primaries], it’s clear that Paloma Valencia is the right-wing’s principal candidate,” Sergio Guzmán, director at Colombia Risk Analysis, a political risk consultancy, told Latin America Reports.
Before Sunday’s vote, de la Espriella had been dominating conservative polls. Now, it is unclear which conservative candidate will attract the most voters in May’s election.
Whoever emerges as the winner must face off with Cepeda and will be under pressure to win over centrist Colombians, said Guzman.
One way to achieve this is by selecting running mates with a broader appeal.
Sunday’s primaries highlighted the widespread popularity of Juan Daniel Oviedo, who was on the same list as Valencia and won 17% of the total votes. The former director of the National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE), Oviedo is considered center-right and notably more moderate than Valencia.
Valencia is under mounting public pressure to pick Oviedo as her running mate, according to Jaramillo, but the two differ on key issues and Oviedo has specified strict conditions for joining Valencia’s ticket.
“We openly show fundamental differences. For example, I believe in peace,” Oviedo told Colombian radio station Caracol on Monday. “You cannot take positions that do not recognize that the [2016 peace] agreement must be implemented and that it requires more than just bullets to get rid of criminals,” he added.
Valencia has staked her campaign on law and order, promising a ‘mano dura’, or ‘iron fist’, against crime and armed groups in Colombia. Her politics follow those of her party’s founder, ex-president Álvaro Uribe, who waged war on the FARC rebels from 2002 to 2010.
Today, Valencia told Caracol that she will not compromise on this: “I am an Uribista and I have my values and principles… Neither he [Oviedo] will change nor will I change.”
But Valencia said she remains open to running alongside Oviedo, with the two due to meet today to discuss a possible joint ticket. She is also considering four other possible running mates, according to Colombian newspaper El Tiempo, with her decision due by Friday.
Jaramillo argues the best move for Valencia is not to pick Oviedo, as he is legally bound to support her as they ran under the same list in the primaries.
He believes she should distance herself from Uribe – arguing Uribistas are more likely to back de la Espriella – and instead court the moderate vote by choosing a center-left candidate.
But Guzmán says that is unlikely: “She seems to be going in a different direction.”
Featured image description: Left to right: Iván Cepeda, Paloma Valencia, Abelardo de la Espriella.
Featured image credit: @PactoCol via X / @PalomaValenciaL via X / @ABDELAESPRIELLA via X
The post Colombia presidential candidates announce running mates as race narrows appeared first on Latin America Reports.
Bogotá, Colombia – On March 8, Colombians elected members of the Senate and House of Representatives, as well as choosing their preferred candidates in three presidential primaries for the left, right, and center coalitions.
The elections, which coincided with International Women’s Day, saw a record number of female candidates partake as well as a woman, Paloma Valencia, winning the most votes in the primaries in a historic first.
But with women’s representation in Congress stagnating, analysts say there is still much progress to be had in the way of gender equality in Colombian politics.
Following the March 8 elections, two women emerged as the favorite presidential candidates in their primary coalitions: Paloma Valencia, representative for the Centro Democrático (Democratic Center) party, won a landslide victory in the right-wing coalition, while ex-Bogotá mayor Claudia López took the lead in the center.
“We women have to work twice as hard so that people can actually understand that we are doing our job. Female leadership is normally interpreted as being ‘too bossy,’ and then, we are restricted to certain areas,” said Valencia during an interview with Latin America Reports.
Despite Valencia receiving more than 3 million votes, soaring past the other 15 candidates in the primaries, female representation in Congress still stopped short of expectations.
“Female leadership is recognized for its power to mobilize, collaborate, and build bridges; it tends to be a much more transformational type of leadership, oriented toward motivation, building consensus,” Nathalie Méndez, associate professor in government at Bogotá’s Universidad de los Andes, told Latin America Reports.
But the success of a single individual isn’t enough. For the first time in history, female candidacies reached 40.9% of the total lists registered for Congress, according to a report by the Interior Ministry.
However, despite being the election with the highest female participation, this surge was not reflected in the results. For the 2026-2030 period, there were 32 women elected to the Senate (31.4%) and 53 women elected to the House of Representatives (28.96%). This marks a total of 85 women out of 286 seats, representing only 29.7% of the total Congress.
Underscoring the lack of material advances in representation is the fact that the exact same number of women were elected to Congress in the 2022 elections.
“Women don’t receive the same resources as men, nor are they placed in positions with real chances to win the elections. Consequently, the rise of female candidates remains nothing more than a figure on paper,” explained Méndez.
Colombian society is also deeply conservative, creating a cultural environment where patriarchy persists and invalidates women in all spheres.
“What we see in Colombia is that a dual-type barrier persists, which I call institutional and cultural,” said Méndez.
These barriers are especially pronounced in certain provinces, such as Caldas and Quindío, where not a single woman represents their communities in the House of Representatives.
“In local politics, financing is tied to political machineries and regional elites that are still deeply entrenched in male leadership. Breaking this panorama remains very difficult for women,” claimed Méndez.
In addition, some party lists were closed, meaning people vote for a party logo rather than a specific person. With this, some voters are focused primarily on the party’s brand and could be unaware of the specific women’s names on the list, potentially making female candidates more invisible.
“Women are required, for example, to demonstrate much more experience, to hold more degrees, and even after proving they are just as good as men, cultural prejudices continue to surface,” Méndez declared.
Yet the most-voted candidate for the entire Congress was Nadia Blel. The Conservative Party leader secured a massive victory, winning over 178,000 votes and becoming the highest individual vote-getter in the 2026 elections. Her success on March 8 proves that while progress for women overall appears to be blocked, individual female leaders are winning their own battles and shattering expectations at the polls.
“What this represents is that there are women who have managed to break the glass ceiling through their own trajectories or strong political legacies, but that is not enough to change the Colombian political culture,” added the researcher.
These elections showed that having names on a ballot is not enough; the real victory will come when every region in Colombia allows women to occupy political spaces on par with men.
Featured image description: International Women’s Day march in Colombia, 2024
Featured image credit: Wikimedia Commons
The post Despite prominent female winners, Colombia elections highlight slow path to parity appeared first on Latin America Reports.
Less than three weeks before Colombians head to the polls in presidential elections, centrist candidate Claudia Lopez’s odds at victory are slim, to say the least.
Since winning the primary contest to lead the Consultation of Solutions (Consulta de las Soluciones) bloc in March, the silver-haired former mayor of Bogotá has been criss-crossing the country to win over moderate voters.
But the latest polls report the 56-year-old’s share of the vote as being in the low single digits.
Dressed in her signature gilet and sipping from a mug of coffee, the former Harvard University guest lecturer says in flawless English that she wants to do the interview in Spanish – “I need to get people to vote for me,” she jokes.
With little to lose, López speaks candidly about her time in office, her views on other politicians, and her experience on the campaign trail.
López, who steered Bogotá through the Covid-19 pandemic and a mass wave of anti-government protests, speaks proudly of her stint as mayor from 2020 to 2024.
The presidential hopeful rattles off a list of her achievements in office: her management of the Covid-19 pandemic, lifting 600,000 women out of poverty, and rolling out Bogotá’s public bicycle network.
López also speaks candidly about the problems during her mayorship, which spanned the administrations of presidents Iván Duque and Gustavo Petro.
“Interestingly, I ended up having an easier relationship with President Duque, a right-winger, than with my left-wing president, whom I voted for,” says López.
López, who publicly backed Petro’s candidacy, describes friction between the national government and the mayor’s office.
“President Petro is an effusive leader, but he is too effusive, very machista, and I, well, I don’t agree with that; if there’s one thing I can’t stand in my life, it’s the abuse of power.”
Today, the former senator finds herself trying to carve out a place in a noisy election cycle marked by political extremes and polarization.
Her coalition’s platform is based on three pillars: security and territorial governance; equality and social justice; and regional development without corruption.
López’s shift to the center has drawn some criticism, including from voters who note the former Green Alliance member’s u-turn on key environmental issues like fracking.
Last year, she declared: “If god gave us oil, coal, and gas, that is what we will use.”
“I maintain this stance,” insists López, adding she opposes the Petro administration’s pause on all oil and gas exploration. “Stopping gas exploration means halting Colombia’s energy transition – it’s a mistake.”
López argues the policy has damaged the economy and reduced funds for investment and development.
Instead, she backs a gradual transition: “I estimate that the transition in Colombia from fossil fuels to cleaner energy sources will take us about 25 years, give or take.”
The candidate believes in preserving biodiversity, saying she would not authorize mineral exploration in the country’s forests or protected areas, marking a softer stance than some of her opponents.
Among her rivals, López is especially critical of right-wing criminal defense attorney Abelardo de la Espriella.
“He is the only candidate – let’s put it this way – whom I would absolutely never vote for. He is a defender of mobsters. He is a shadowy character,” says López.
De la Espriella notoriously represented figures linked to paramilitary death squads, the head of the worst pyramid scheme in Colombian history, and Alex Saab, considered the frontman for corruption schemes by former Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro.
López argues that he is an Uribista – a supporter of the politics of right-wing ex-president Álvaro Uribe – but is on a different “side of the coin” to Uribe’s chosen candidate, Paloma Valencia.
“Paloma is definitely a supporter of Uribe, but she’s never exactly been a defender of mobsters,” explains López.
The ex-mayor refused to rule out voting for Valencia or for leftist candidate Ivan Cepeda, the two frontrunners alongside de la Espriella.
But López, a lesbian woman, is staunchly critical of Valencia’s stance on LGBTQ+ rights. The candidate for Uribe’s Democratic Center (Centro Democrático) party opposes adoption by same-sex couples while her party has blocked bans on conversion therapy.
She is particularly critical of Juan Daniel Oviedo, a gay politician, for agreeing to be Valencia’s running mate in March.
“I regret that Juan Daniel Oviedo feels compelled to play along with that anti-rights agenda. In fact, I believe he is the only person who has been told to his face that he is not considered an equal human being, that he is not considered a citizen with the same rights, and that they do not trust him to raise a child,” says López.
Despite her objections to Valencia, López says she still will not rule out voting for her in the second round, citing the improbable possibility that Paloma faces de la Espriella in a run-off.
But the former mayor maintains she would not endorse Valencia and Oviedo in any eventuality: “I wouldn’t campaign for them, ask anyone to vote for them, or endorse them.”
Finally, faced with nearly impossible odds in May’s elections, López projects a springy optimism about her political future.
“I’m very happy with the campaign I’ve run, and I’m very grateful to the Colombian people,” says the candidate, stressing that it is just her first stab at the presidency.
“Ours is a new grassroots movement; we only just collected the signatures last year, so I feel grateful, happy, and very excited, and I’m going to continue in politics and continue working to build Colombian social democracy.”
This article originally appeared on The Bogotá Post and was republished with permission.
Featured image description: Claudia Lopez.
Featured image credit: Billy Ramsey.
The post In conversation with Claudia López, Colombian presidential candidate and ex-mayor of Bogotá appeared first on Latin America Reports.
Colombia will hold a presidential runoff between two candidates who embody irreconcilable visions for the country. Abelardo de la Espriella, the ultraconservative lawyer who ran as the outsider promising to break with everything, won the first round with 43.7% of the vote, with 99% of polling stations counted. Iván Cepeda, the candidate of the governing left, received 40.9%.
© EPV
The global far right, which has achieved major milestones in recent years by seizing power in countries such as Argentina and Chile, is now watching closely the elections Colombia will hold on May 31. Abelardo de la Espriella, a lawyer making his political debut as an outsider, has emerged as the country’s extremist figure, invoking epic rhetoric to position himself as the ideal candidate to defeat the left. His campaign has focused on defending a “miracle homeland,” a country of traditional values with the economy and security at its core, where the left— or “communism,” as he calls it—and moderate parties play no leading role. His message has resonated in a society battered by violence, where many see the self-styled “Tiger” as a necessary change.
© Mauricio Dueñas Castañeda (EFE)
Less than three weeks before Colombians head to the polls in presidential elections, centrist candidate Claudia Lopez’s odds at victory are slim, to say the least.
Since winning the primary contest to lead the Consultation of Solutions (Consulta de las Soluciones) bloc in March, the silver-haired former mayor of Bogotá has been criss-crossing the country to win over moderate voters.
But the latest polls report the 56-year-old’s share of the vote as being in the low single digits.
Dressed in her signature gilet and sipping from a mug of coffee, the former Harvard University guest lecturer says in flawless English that she wants to do the interview in Spanish – “I need to get people to vote for me,” she jokes.
With little to lose, López speaks candidly about her time in office, her views on other politicians, and her experience on the campaign trail.
López, who steered Bogotá through the Covid-19 pandemic and a mass wave of anti-government protests, speaks proudly of her stint as mayor from 2020 to 2024.
The presidential hopeful rattles off a list of her achievements in office: her management of the Covid-19 pandemic, lifting 600,000 women out of poverty, and rolling out Bogotá’s public bicycle network.
López also speaks candidly about the problems during her mayorship, which spanned the administrations of presidents Iván Duque and Gustavo Petro.
“Interestingly, I ended up having an easier relationship with President Duque, a right-winger, than with my left-wing president, whom I voted for,” says López.
López, who publicly backed Petro’s candidacy, describes friction between the national government and the mayor’s office.
“President Petro is an effusive leader, but he is too effusive, very machista, and I, well, I don’t agree with that; if there’s one thing I can’t stand in my life, it’s the abuse of power.”
Today, the former senator finds herself trying to carve out a place in a noisy election cycle marked by political extremes and polarization.
Her coalition’s platform is based on three pillars: security and territorial governance; equality and social justice; and regional development without corruption.
López’s shift to the center has drawn some criticism, including from voters who note the former Green Alliance member’s u-turn on key environmental issues like fracking.
Last year, she declared: “If god gave us oil, coal, and gas, that is what we will use.”
“I maintain this stance,” insists López, adding she opposes the Petro administration’s pause on all oil and gas exploration. “Stopping gas exploration means halting Colombia’s energy transition – it’s a mistake.”
López argues the policy has damaged the economy and reduced funds for investment and development.
Instead, she backs a gradual transition: “I estimate that the transition in Colombia from fossil fuels to cleaner energy sources will take us about 25 years, give or take.”
The candidate believes in preserving biodiversity, saying she would not authorize mineral exploration in the country’s forests or protected areas, marking a softer stance than some of her opponents.
Among her rivals, López is especially critical of right-wing criminal defense attorney Abelardo de la Espriella.
“He is the only candidate – let’s put it this way – whom I would absolutely never vote for. He is a defender of mobsters. He is a shadowy character,” says López.
De la Espriella notoriously represented figures linked to paramilitary death squads, the head of the worst pyramid scheme in Colombian history, and Alex Saab, considered the frontman for corruption schemes by former Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro.
López argues that he is an Uribista – a supporter of the politics of right-wing ex-president Álvaro Uribe – but is on a different “side of the coin” to Uribe’s chosen candidate, Paloma Valencia.
“Paloma is definitely a supporter of Uribe, but she’s never exactly been a defender of mobsters,” explains López.
The ex-mayor refused to rule out voting for Valencia or for leftist candidate Ivan Cepeda, the two frontrunners alongside de la Espriella.
But López, a lesbian woman, is staunchly critical of Valencia’s stance on LGBTQ+ rights. The candidate for Uribe’s Democratic Center (Centro Democrático) party opposes adoption by same-sex couples while her party has blocked bans on conversion therapy.
She is particularly critical of Juan Daniel Oviedo, a gay politician, for agreeing to be Valencia’s running mate in March.
“I regret that Juan Daniel Oviedo feels compelled to play along with that anti-rights agenda. In fact, I believe he is the only person who has been told to his face that he is not considered an equal human being, that he is not considered a citizen with the same rights, and that they do not trust him to raise a child,” says López.
Despite her objections to Valencia, López says she still will not rule out voting for her in the second round, citing the improbable possibility that Paloma faces de la Espriella in a run-off.
But the former mayor maintains she would not endorse Valencia and Oviedo in any eventuality: “I wouldn’t campaign for them, ask anyone to vote for them, or endorse them.”
Finally, faced with nearly impossible odds in May’s elections, López projects a springy optimism about her political future.
“I’m very happy with the campaign I’ve run, and I’m very grateful to the Colombian people,” says the candidate, stressing that it is just her first stab at the presidency.
“Ours is a new grassroots movement; we only just collected the signatures last year, so I feel grateful, happy, and very excited, and I’m going to continue in politics and continue working to build Colombian social democracy.”
This article originally appeared on The Bogotá Post and was republished with permission.
Featured image description: Claudia Lopez.
Featured image credit: Billy Ramsey.
The post In conversation with Claudia López, Colombian presidential candidate and ex-mayor of Bogotá appeared first on Latin America Reports.
Renewed violence — a kind that has never been fully extinguished in Colombia — marks the presidential campaign to choose Gustavo Petro’s successor. In many places, the first-round vote this Sunday will take place under crossfire. Nearly 10 years after the signing of the historic peace accord with the now-defunct FARC guerrilla organization, other armed actors threaten communities and the war still burns, albeit in a more fragmented phase. The humanitarian consequences of the armed conflict have reached “the most serious level of the last decade,” the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned this month. Amid that crisis, public security has become one of the main concerns.
© Santiago Saldarriaga (AP Photo/Santiago Saldarriaga)
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