Two decades ago, Colombia was an absolute disaster. Leftist guerrillas surrounded the capital with tanks and other professional weaponry and had more firepower than the Colombian army. The nation looked like a goner.
Then they elected a conservative -- a very conservative -- leader, Alvaro Uribe, who vowed to crush the left. Uribe meant that close to literally, as he once told the Wall Street Journal didn't believe in the political pendulum theory.
After that, the miracle happened -- the violence ended. The FARC guerrillas were on the run. The country prospered. The trash was picked up. Crime was gone -- one could walk around in Bogota at midnight with no problems at all. The roads were improved. The waves of illegal immigrants fleeing to the U.S. ... reversed. Colombia even became a tourist and expat hotspot.
It all slid downward again after Uribe left office and the RINOs took over. It culminated in the leftist result seen now -- Gustavo Petro, a garrulous clown who was a close ally of Hugo Chavez, who fought with President Trump, and who was something of a pervert on the side.
Now it's election time again, probably a first round of two, and having suffered through four years of radical leftism under Petro, Colombia must decide again whether it will say 'basta' to the radical left as it did in 2002, and refuse its decline as it once did with Uribe, this time electing 'El Tigre,' Abelardo de la Espriella. Its alternaative is to elect another radical leftist, FARC terrorist-friendly, 'I'm not a communist' creep Ivan Cepeda who promises to be even worse than Petro.
Reuters says the same today:
Colombians voted in the first round of a presidential election, with leftist Ivan Cepeda leading in the polls after promising reforms to reduce poverty and negotiate peace with armed groups https://t.co/mDoD1L3fGjpic.twitter.com/rUK1m0ilHN
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 31, 2026
But as of today, other polls look like this:
Esto puede marcar una tendencia en #Colombia (escrutado 22.6%).
— Yole (@yolevenezuela) May 31, 2026
La gente de Paloma y el Centro Democrático debe decidir en la ruta de parar a los socios del chavo-madurismo.
🔵Abelardo — 43.6%
🔴Cepeda — 42.1%
🔵Valencia — 6.3% pic.twitter.com/5KKyvVT3f6
And betting markets are friendly, too:
¡TERREMOTO POLÍTICO EN COLOMBIA! 🇨🇴
— ¡DIFUNDELO YA! (@DIFUNDELOYA) May 31, 2026
Abelardo de la Espriella en las apuestas de Polymarket gana la elección presidencial con un 68% de los Votos.
¡Se disparó a un impresionante 68%! 📈 pic.twitter.com/3wpiGsRPQg
But I also think there's considerable reason for hope, even if Cepeda takes the first position in Sunday's race, with a runoff planned on June 21.
Many Colombians likely remember the difference Uribe made in their lives when he was elected.
Abelardo de la Espriella is a similar candidate, and his polling numbers shot up when he vowed to build ten El Salvador-style CECOT-style prisons for Colombia's criminals and terrorists who have resurged under Petro.
As 'El Tigre,' which is his nickname, he identifies considerably with Argentina's successful president, Javier Milei, who is often identified with a lion. Colombian who can't remember Uribe can see the success of El Salvador and Argentina, and may well long for a slice of it themselves.
The broader picture is that the entire hemisphere is swinging rightward, with hardcore conservatives elected to office in Ecuador, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay, Honduras, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Panama, and apparently two on the way in Brazil and Peru (fingers crossed), while Venezuela, if it can ever hold free and fair elections, would with certainty elect the conservative, Trump-friendly Maria Corina Machado as president to join the wave.
If Colombia opts to go the other way, it would seem strange indeed because the trend is one's friend, but politics is full of oddities.
Abelardo is a promising candidate for Colombia and one can only cross one's fingers that he manages to make it to the runoff, scarfs up the votes that center-right third candidate Paloma Valencia would have otherwise gotten and then takes the communist down.
Here's an early call from lefty Adam Isacson, whose specialty is Colombia:
Colombia does deserve better, Colombia is a vital U.S. ally, and now one can only hope that the victories keep coming.
Update: He's doing it!
The great repudiation of socialism in Latin America is continuing on ... here's the tweet of the day:
Grok translate:
A tiger in Colombia and a lion in Argentina are going to devour all the hyenas of communism on this continent. I won't even mention the eagle of the U.S. because that one is liberating the entire world.