Colombia’s presidential election first round on 31 May saw the far-right candidate Abelardo De la Espriella gain a surprise advantage by winning the first round of the presidential election.
Many are asking how a candidate such as De la Espriella, who has close links to organised crime and has bragged about torturing cats, could attract this level of support. When De la Espriella called Gustavo Petro ‘a criminal, a drug addict’ after the first round, the outgoing president said De la Espriella was backed by ‘the mafia fascism that has already governed in Colombia.’ What exactly does Petro mean by this?
Born to wealthy parents in Bogota in 1978, before relocating to Córdoba while still an infant, De la Espriella grew up in a small-town wealthy family keen to make beneficial contacts. In 2001-02, his father, Abelardo Sr, coordinated the Córdoba regional election campaign for Álvaro Uribe, who was then elected to the presidency despite shady links with drugs traffickers and paramilitary groups. Uribe’s 2002-10 governments were defined by divisive neoliberal reforms and the systematic repression of all civil society forces he considered to be ‘internal enemies’ guilty of ‘subversion’ – including opposition political parties, trade unions and human rights organisations. This political violence to benefit the rich has led many to consider Uribe a fascist, and his political movement a form of fascism.
The Uribe and De la Espreilla families remain close, and Uribe was in attendance at De la Espriella’s father’s last birthday. De la Espriella has called Uribe ‘a great Colombian’, and a ‘patriot’ and there is a clear political affinity between the two that has led some analysts to call De la Espriella a form of ‘post-Uribism’. Like Uribe, De la Espriella has extensive links to paramilitarism. During the Uribe government’s process of demobilisation with the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC), the country’s main paramilitary federation, De la Espriella was an advisor to the group. He served as legal counsel for politicians embroiled in ‘para-politics’ scandals such as Eleonora Pineda and Dieb Maloof.
Based between Bogota and Miami, Abelardo De la Espriella rose to prominence as a defence lawyer for paramilitaries, businessmen and politicians accused of corruption. In 2007, he represented former justice minister Alberto Santofimio who was suspected of involvement in the 1989 assassination of presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán. He later defended David Murcia Guzmán, a Colombian businessman who through a pyramid scheme defrauded tens of thousands of low-income people out of their life savings while laundering drugs trafficking profits.
In his 20s, De la Espriella established the Foundation for Peace Initiatives (FIPAZ) which platformed paramilitary commanders at university forums and campaigned to prohibit extradition requests. In 2008, one paramilitary who had appeared at FIPAZ events, Ernesto Baéz, said that the AUC ‘sought out students, through Abelardo de la Espriella, as a dissemination channel to justify the war’. In 2011, Colombia’s Supreme Court of Justice said FIPAZ ‘did not promote peace when the self-defence groups were massacring, disappearing, killing and torturing, but rather they sought to project themselves politically through university students.’ It ordered an investigation into De la Espriella over alleged conspiracy and money laundering, but this was blocked by the Attorney General’s Office, then led by a friend of De la Espriella, Mario Iguarán. A number of paramilitaries have testified that Iguarán’s appointment to the position came after they paid his opponent to drop out of contention.
De la Espriella is particularly close to jailed former paramilitary Salvatore Mancuso, whose forces carried out some 10,000 forced disappearances and over 40,000 displacements. The two went to the same school in Monteria, and when the Uribe government extradited Mancuso to the US – which some believe was to stop him testifying on the links between politicians and paramilitaries – De la Espriella defended his friend, saying ‘Mancuso is from my hometown and he shouldered a fight that all of us from Córdoba should have fought’, implying that the killings and violence were somehow justified.
Like other far right leaders, De la Espriella uses militaristic symbols and language. He has promised to escalate violent confrontation with illegal armed groups in what he calls a ‘remastered’ policy of ‘democratic security’. His air force headwear and army-style salutes feed into mano dura (strong hand) security narratives that seek to exploit citizen concerns over violence and crime. The name of his party, Defenders of the Homeland (Defensores de la Patria), also plays to these ideas.
Among the mano dura policies laid out by De la Espriella is the creation of mega-prisons modelled on those built by the government of Nayib Bukele in El Salvador. Ironically given his background, he has promised to eliminate corruption and drugs trafficking. He has been deeply critical of the 2016 peace agreement and has talked of abolishing its transitional justice system and of reintroducing chemical fumigation – which ostensibly targets drugs production but has a devastating environmental and social impact. He has also promised to intensify military action against armed groups. Economically, he favours slashing social spending and redirecting focus and resources to the private sector.
Although like other far-right populists De la Espriella claims to be an ‘outsider’ to the establishment, his supporters and associates show him to be a product of the elite. His vice-presidential running mate, José Manuel Restrepo, was a minister in the 2018-22 government of Iván Duque, while other former ministers have also declared their support. He is backed by the supremely influential Char dynasty in northern Colombia. The right’s defeated presidential candidate, Paloma Valencia, and her Democratic Centre party’s leader, former president Uribe, also swiftly declared their support after she was eliminated in the first round.
Like other far right ‘insurgents’ such as Milei and Bukele, De la Espriella has made extensive use of social media. He campaigns with right-wing influencers at his side, and his legal team are aggressive in suing critical journalists, accusing them of being ‘digital militia’ (a term used to describe guerrillas) and propagators of ‘fake news’. He has also been accused of using bot farms based in Brazil to create viral content and influence digital polls.
A recent investigation uncovered the existence of ‘Operation Jupiter,’ a digital project under the leadership of Jaime Bermúdez (Uribe’s former adviser and foreign minister), intended to influence social media and develop workshops aimed at business employees with the intention to generate fear, indignation and uncertainty. Over 7 billion Colombian pesos were raised by business interests to finance the digital campaign. Another investigation highlighted the use by De la Espriella’s campaign of AI-generated videos in the region of Meta, which showed working people supposedly disillusioned with the governing Historic Pact. One analyst has said the impacts could be far-reaching since ‘citizens are going to take decisions thinking that millions of other citizens are thinking something and it isn’t true – it’s machines, millions of machines programmed to make us think, to feel and to rage.’
Internationally, De la Espriella has made clear his admiration for Latin America’s other far-right leaders such as Bukele and Argentinian president Javier Milei. Earlier this year he travelled to the United States where he met privately with Marco Rubio. Martin Botero, an international relations specialist has said that the visit was evidence of an ‘open channel with the decision-making centre’. Upon his return, De la Espriella tweeted that ‘important things are discussed in secret’ implying some kind of coordination with the Trump administration. He plans to bring Colombia into the orbit of Donald Trump’s Shield of the Americas initiative that, at root, seeks to ensure regional governments comply with Washington’s geopolitical and economic interests. He has proposed withdrawing Colombia from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and restoring diplomatic ties with Israel, which Petro broke off following Israel’s assault on Gaza. Furthermore, De la Espriella has said that military action against armed groups inside Colombia could be carried out with US and Israeli involvement.
Given his history, the possibility of De la Espriella’s election has many sectors of Colombian society concerned. Juan Fernando Cristo, a former minister in two governments has said that a De la Espriella victory ‘would be fatal for Colombia’. What seems clear is that if De la Espriella becomes Colombia’s next president, it will likely come at a significant cost for trade unions, civil society and the movement for peace and human rights.