Abelardo de la Espriella and Ivan Cepeda will meet at the polls in three weeks<\/p>\n
Pro-Trump lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella secured a narrow lead over left-wing Senator Ivan Cepeda in the first round of Colombia\u2019s presidential election on Sunday.
\nWith votes counted from more than 99% of polling stations, de la Espriella received 43.72% of the vote, while Cepeda secured 40.92%. Conservative candidate Paloma Valencia came third with 6.92%. The runoff will take place on June 21.
\nColombia has historically been the United States\u2019 most important ally in the region in terms of security cooperation and counternarcotics efforts.
\nThe US is Colombia\u2019s largest trading partner, and the country shares a long border with neighboring Venezuela.
\nRelations between Washington and Bogota deteriorated significantly in recent years under outgoing President Gustavo Petro, who criticized US President Donald Trump\u2019s mass deportation policies and military strikes on suspected drug trafficking boats. The two leaders frequently traded insults on social media and in public statements.
\nPetro, Colombia\u2019s first left-wing president, is constitutionally barred from seeking a second consecutive term and has endorsed Cepeda.<\/p>\n
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For his conservative policies and friendly stance toward the US, de la Espriella has been compared to El Salvador\u2019s President Nayib Bukele, one of Trump\u2019s closest allies in Latin America.
\nThe candidate has praised Trump\u2019s \u201ccultural battle against wokeism\u201d and vowed to uphold traditional gender norms.
\nDe la Espriella welcomed Trump\u2019s return to the White House and backed the US commando raid in Caracas earlier this year, during which American forces abducted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
\n\u201cIt has been revealed how USAID and woke populism fueled the leftward shift in countries like Colombia\u2026 To guarantee a fair race, it is urgent that your father\u2019s administration puts Petro in his place,\u201d de la Espriella wrote on X in January in response to a post by Donald Trump Jr.
\nCepeda, the son of a Communist senator killed in 1994 by state-linked paramilitaries, has opposed Trump\u2019s interventionism and condemned his threats against Petro.
\n\u201cWe are neither a colony nor a protectorate of the United States. We will not submit to any form of imperial or authoritarian domination,\u201d Cepeda wrote on X in January.
\nIn an interview with Jacobin shortly after Maduro\u2019s abduction, Cepeda denounced Trump\u2019s attempts to revive the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine, which treats Latin America and the Caribbean as an exclusive sphere of US influence.
\n\u201cWe are a zone of peace. And we do not accept foreign interference. That is how governments and peoples must align,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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