Colombia's Revenge Vote

During the election period, soon after the killing of the so-called FARC (The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia) dissident commander Ivan Idrobo, alias Marlon, a question began circulating across Colombia. Can the Colombian state finally become strong enough that armed groups no longer step into the vacuum where government authority should exist?

- BY NILANTHA ILANGAMUWA

The timing could hardly have been more symbolic. While President Gustavo Petro presented the military operation against Marlon as a major victory against illegal armed structures, his own political project was entering its weakest moment. The first left-wing president in Colombia’s modern history, who promised to transform the country through social reform, peace building and a different relationship between the state and marginalized communities, was watching political power shift towards a completely different force.

Colombia narrowly chose Abelardo de la Espriella, a millionaire lawyer and political outsider who built his entire campaign around the image of a political predator. He called himself "El Tigre" and offered voters a message centered on strength, punishment and national revival. In many ways, his victory places Colombia within the same political current that has lifted figures such as Javier Milei in Argentina and Nayib Bukele in El Salvador. It is a movement fuelled by frustration, anger and exhaustion with traditional politics, but also by a growing belief that complex national problems can be defeated through force of personality rather than patient institution-building.

The Colombian election was not simply a victory for the right. It was a rejection of a political establishment that, despite decades of promises from both sides of the ideological divide, failed to solve the fundamental problems shaping ordinary life. The left promised equality and social transformation but struggled to deliver security, economic confidence and effective state control in many regions. The traditional right promised order but failed to eliminate the structural causes that allow criminal economies, corruption and inequality to survive. Between these two failures, political space opened for a figure who promised to destroy the old system entirely.