{"id":81893,"date":"2026-06-22T18:40:39","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T01:40:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=81893"},"modified":"2026-06-22T18:40:39","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T01:40:39","slug":"a-country-gripped-by-fear-what-follows-in-the-wake-of-colombias-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=81893","title":{"rendered":"A Country \u2018Gripped by Fear\u2019 \u2014 What Follows in the Wake of Colombia\u2019s Elections"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
By<\/span>Selen Ozturk<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/i>
\n
\n
\"\"
Voters cast ballots during the first round of Colombia’s presidential elections in May. (Credit Manuel Ortiz)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n

Colombia has become the latest Latin American nation to swing right after the surprise June 21 election win by lawyer and businessman Abelardo de la Espriella. The upstart candidate narrowly beat his rival and progressive standard bearer Iv\u00e1n Cepeda.<\/p>\n

Experts say de la Espriella\u2019s win raises serious concerns over human rights, democracy and a fragile peace process that could return Colombia to the violence of years past.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe language of polarization obscures more than it reveals,\u201d said Beatriz Magaloni, a political scientist and senior fellow at Stanford University, where she directs the Poverty, Violence, and Governance Lab and co-directs the Democracy Action Lab.<\/p>\n

Speaking during a\u00a0June 12 ACoM virtual news conference<\/a>, Magaloni said the political divide in Colombia \u2014 where de la Espriella appears to have won with 49.7% of the vote compared to 48.7% for Cepeda \u2014\u00a0is less ideological than the results might otherwise indicate.<\/p>\n

\u201cPolarization suggests that citizens disagree about policy, divisions between left and right,\u201d she noted. \u201cIn Latin America today, although at first sight it does appear as a confrontation between left and right, it\u2019s really not ideological, but about the way people experience what they see as the state failing them in their everyday lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tough on crime?\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In Colombia\u2019s cities and semi-urban areas, Magaloni said, residents \u201csuffer crime, they suffer extortion, they suffer insecurity,\u201d and see in de la Espriella\u2019s tough-on-crime message \u201ca really interesting solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is a solution, she adds, consciously modeled after Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, after whom de la Espriella \u2014\u00a0nicknamed \u2018Tiger\u2019 \u2014\u00a0has styled himself both outwardly and in terms of policy. One of de la Espriella\u2019s key campaign pledges is the construction of 10 mega-prisons across Colombia much like the notorious\u00a0CECOT prison in El Salvador<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But in rural Colombia, where many of the country\u2019s historically marginalized Afro-Colombian and Indigenous communities live, Magaloni described residents \u201cbeing terrorized\u201d by the expansion of armed criminal groups fighting for profit and control of land, mining and drug-trafficking corridors.<\/p>\n

Between mid-2022 and mid-2025 \u2014 under the tenure of outgoing president Gustavo Petro, Colombia\u2019s first leftist leader \u2014\u00a0armed groups\u00a0expanded in size by 45%<\/a>, numbering some 21,958 people.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese criminal organizations live from drug trafficking, extracting oil,\u201d said Magaloni, adding, \u201cthey live from extorting populations\u201d that de la Espriella repeatedly demeaned in campaign statements\u00a0widely condemned as racist<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I fear about the emphasis on security,\u201d she continued, \u201cis that these organized criminal groups that are violating human rights and extracting resources are not necessarily going to be in the radar of a government that doesn\u2019t pay attention to the demands of these populations.\u201d<\/p>\n

A land dispute turns deadly<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\n
\n
\n
\"\"<\/picture>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Manuel Ortiz, sociologist, documentary photographer, journalist, and audiovisual consultant for the Democracy Action Lab at Stanford University, discusses land ownership disputes and violence in rural Colombia.<\/em><\/p>\n

Manuel Ortiz is a sociologist and documentary journalist with Stanford\u2019s Democracy Action Lab. He recently returned from Cauca in Colombia\u2019s southwest, where a territorial dispute between two Indigenous groups\u00a0turned violent on May 21<\/a>, leaving at least seven people dead and more than 100 injured.<\/p>\n

The clash, he says, highlights the underlying issues complicating Colombia\u2019s fraught peace process.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth communities recognize that the main problem is not the other\u201d but rather the scarcity of arable land needed to support a growing population, said Ortiz, who traced the dispute in Cauca to the presidency of \u00c1lvaro Uribe from 2002 to 2010.<\/p>\n

At the time, mass displacement allowed large rural landholders to seize territory abandoned by Indigenous and Afro-Colombian farmworking communities fleeing violence. Colombia has among the world\u2019s largest populations of internally displaced people.<\/p>\n

Those same communities are now struggling to recover this lost land, a process Petro sought \u2014\u00a0if imperfectly \u2014\u00a0to oversee.<\/p>\n

Ortiz echoes Magaloni, saying these latest elections were less about traditional left versus right and more about sustaining \u201cpeace agreements and restoring land versus returning to periods of violence and land-grabbing.\u201d<\/p>\n

De la Espriella\u2019s victory, Ortiz said, portends \u201cmore fights like the one we saw in Cauca \u2026 the people have to live and work somewhere, so they will start fighting for the little piece of land that they still have.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Openly fascist\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Colombia finds itself \u201cgripped by fear,\u201d says Alex Sierra, an anthropologist with the Bogot\u00e1-based Centro de Estudios Sociojur\u00eddicos Latinoamericanos (CESJUL).<\/p>\n

\u201cSome fear that Abelardo will persecute and murder those of us who oppose him,\u201d noted Sierra, speaking the day after polls closed. \u201cOthers fear that the left, by refusing to recognize the election results, will create an atmosphere of violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Petro alleged irregularities following the first round of voting and has rejected any declaration of victory by de la Espriella until the final count is ratified. Cepeda has likewise yet to concede.<\/p>\n

During his campaign de la Espriella also vowed to \u201cgut the left,\u201d a phrase opponents took literally as a threat of violence.<\/p>\n

Sierra, who has spent decades documenting human rights abuses across Colombia and Latin America, said activists on the left \u2014\u00a0including young people\u00a0injured by \u201cnon-lethal\u201d police weapons<\/a>\u00a0during protests five years earlier \u2014\u00a0\u201cfear the return\u201d of what he called an \u201copenly fascist\u201d style of policing.<\/p>\n

He added de la Espriella will also face significant challenges confronting the country\u2019s growing paramilitary presence.<\/p>\n

More than 57 armed groups with \u201cwar-fighting capability\u201d already control territory across Colombia, a situation that threatens \u201ca dramatic spiral of new violence,\u201d warned Sierra. De la Espriella \u2014\u00a0himself a naturalized U.S. citizen \u2014\u00a0has said he would welcome U.S. military support in taking on the groups.<\/p>\n

Drawing on his own work observing recent elections in Honduras and Chile, Sierra said he has identified \u201ca pattern of Donald Trump generating direct interference\u201d in the region\u2019s elections, interference which carries \u201ca very negative impact\u201d on democracies that remain \u201cvery fragile\u201d and shaped by a \u201chistorical fear\u201d of U.S. influence.<\/p>\n

Security versus democracy<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\n
\n
\n
\"\"<\/picture>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Beatriz Magaloni, professor of political science and senior fellow, Stanford University; director, Poverty, Violence, and Governance Lab; and co-director, Democracy Action Lab, explains why people give up on democracy and vote for authoritarian, anti-democratic leaders.<\/em><\/p>\n

Migration is another central theme of this election, Magaloni adds.<\/p>\n

Colombia has been the largest host country for Venezuelan migrants, absorbing\u00a0nearly 3 million<\/a>\u00a0fleeing rampant violence, economic collapse and political repression. While Colombia\u2019s government took early steps to integrate these new arrivals, \u201cwe still observe a lot of difficulties and problems,\u201d said Magaloni.<\/p>\n

As in Chile, which just saw\u00a0an election defined largely by fears of crime and immigration<\/a>, surveys conducted by Magaloni\u2019s team across Latin America found that 67% of respondents \u201cregard insecurity as the most important problem,\u201d above concerns about democracy, due process and human rights.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I have found in our interviews is that [people in Latin America] \u2026 are willing to tolerate approaches to security that disregard [these principles],\u201d Magaloni said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem is that democracy itself is failing to provide those solutions,\u201d she added, \u201cVoters everywhere are telling us that democracy has to deliver for people to continue to embrace it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BySelen Ozturk Jun 22, 2026 Voters...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=81893"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81894,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81893\/revisions\/81894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=81893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=81893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=81893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}