Pro-Trump Outsider Leads Colombia’s First Round as President Disputes the Count

Colombia’s presidential election is headed to a June 21 runoff after neither candidate cleared 50 percent in Sunday’s first round, with a right-wing outsider who calls himself an ally of President Trump in front, NBC News reported.

With all of the vote counted, Abelardo de la Espriella, a lawyer and political newcomer, led with more than 43 percent, NBC reported; PBS NewsHour put him at nearly 44 percent. Ivan Cepeda, a left-wing senator from the governing Pacto Historico party who helped negotiate the 2016 peace deal with the FARC guerrillas, finished with just over 40 percent. Paloma Valencia of the Centro Democratico party took under 7 percent, was eliminated, and endorsed de la Espriella, NBC said.

De la Espriella campaigned on a pledge to crack down on violent crime and positioned himself as an ally of Trump. “We will defeat tyranny and absolutism,” he said, according to NBC. The vote was widely seen as a referendum on the policies of President Gustavo Petro a decade after the FARC peace pact. Violence has risen in the country, NBC noted, including drone strikes and armed attacks during the campaign.

Petro, who backed Cepeda, rejected the preliminary count. He said software used by private companies to tally the vote was flawed, that the results were not binding, and that about 800,000 identification numbers for people not on the official census had been added to the system, NBC reported. Cepeda also questioned the results at first, saying there was a discrepancy he wished to verify and that votes had been miscounted. PBS reported he later backed away from those claims.

Election observers and the electoral authority pushed back. Hernan Penagos, who heads the National Civil Registry, said in March that the preliminary count for this year’s congressional elections reached 99.8 percent precision compared with the final results, according to NBC. Juanita Goebertus, the Americas director of Human Rights Watch, called Colombia’s electoral system independent and trustworthy and said Petro’s doubts were unjustified.

The race has drawn attention from Washington. Sen. Bernie Moreno, an Ohio Republican, called the election pivotal, cited recent U.S. military action in Venezuela, and said he would serve as an international election observer. After the first round he wrote that “Democracy won today” and said he planned to return for the runoff. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida formally endorsed de la Espriella, and she and Rep. Carlos Gimenez, also a Florida Republican, congratulated him on X. Petro answered Moreno on X, saying political statements about the citizenry’s vote are illegal interference. NBC added that some U.S. officials had suggested a vote for Cepeda would be a mistake. Petro and Trump have often feuded but appeared to make peace at a February meeting in the Oval Office.

The runoff, three weeks away, will pit a candidate promising a hard line on crime against a left-wing senator from the president’s own movement.