Clad in the Colombian soccer uniform and accompanied by the rattle of drums and the flash of stadium pyrotechnics, President-elect Abelardo de la Espriella approached the podium in Barranquilla last week Sunday and roared, “Colombia, your tiger is here!”
De la Espriella, a right-wing populist lawyer who calls himself “the tiger,” clinched a narrow victory in the second round of the country’s presidential election over left-wing Senator Iván Cepeda. De la Espriella is a return to the right for Colombia, which has struggled with crime and disorder under current President Gustavo Petro’s strategy of “paz total” (“total peace”), which largely consists of negotiating with cartels and narcoterrorists and hoping—so far futilely—that they will voluntarily lay down their arms.
The president-elect is a new kind of leader in Colombia, a fiery, flashy populist who savaged the traditional Colombian right, led by the massively popular former president Álvaro Uribe Vélez, arguing that the country needs a political outsider willing to go to greater lengths than the comparatively staid center-right. An adherent to the growing libertarian tendency on the Latin American right, De la Espriella has advocated for reducing the size of the Colombian state by as much as 40 percent, much of which he argues can be done by simply wiping out the corruption and patronage of the Colombian political class.
If this sounds familiar, it’s no accident—De la Espriella is an admirer of Javier Milei, the libertarian president of Argentina. Milei’s monumental accomplishments in pulling Argentina out of an inflationary spiral and balancing the national budget have made him an aspirational figure across the region, and de la Espriella has been quick both to praise Milei’s politics and appropriate his campaign strategy for his own use. Milei spoke incessantly of la casta, the Argentine political caste that fattened itself on the nation’s struggles; de la Espriella’s campaign speeches and literature are littered with references to the dichotomy between los de siempre, “the usual suspects” (literally “the ones who it always is,” i.e. Colombian politicos) and los nunca, the people who have never made their living off the public purse.
Unlike Milei, however, de la Espriella must contend with the perpetual battle between the Colombian government and the various cartels and other criminal organizations that fester in the jungles and wildernesses of the Colombian countryside. The center of his security strategy is a total repudiation of Petro’s diplomatic outreach to the various rebel and criminal groups that now control vast swathes of rural Colombia: de la Espriella insists his government will brook no negotiations with criminals. “Petros’ Paz total is not a failed peace, it is treason against the motherland,” his platform asserts.
Instead, he plans to rebuild the Colombian Army and retake control of the country militarily. This is a tall order. Organized crime in Colombia has expanded rapidly since Petro assumed office in 2022: The number of organized criminals under arms expanded from 15,000 in 2022 to over 27,000 by the beginning of 2026. That expansion has fueled violent turf wars, as various cartels clash and compete for control over coca-producing territories and other opportunities to ply their illicit trades. During the first 3 months of 2026 alone, cartels committed 35 massacres that killed 133 people, making it one of the most violent quarters in a decade.
One potentially major asset de la Espriella has is strong support from the United States, which has long assisted the Colombian government with antinarcotics enforcement in the region. Colombia has traditionally been one of the United States’ most important allies in Latin America. Its location and geography make it irresistible for cartels looking to produce and transport cocaine and other drugs to the U.S., which means that preserving its strong and competent military and relatively stable political system is vital for American interests in the region. But U.S.–Colombian relations have cooled under Petro, who is less interested in eradicating coca and has a deep personal enmity towards President Donald Trump.
De la Espriella made clear his intention to reposition Colombia firmly within the American sphere of influence. That decision was recognized and rewarded in Washington: In the days leading up to the second round of the election, Trump presented de la Espriella with his gold-leaf seal of approval.
“The results of this Election are very important to the future of Colombia and its relationship to the United States,” he announced on his Truth Social account. “Because of his tremendous accomplishments in life, and his political support for me, personally, it is my Honor to give Abelardo my Complete and Total Endorsement.”
Given the second Trump administration’s heightened focus on the Western Hemisphere and regional security, it’s not unreasonable for de la Espriella to hope for a return to the days of Plan Colombia, which would make fulfilling his pledge to both massively reduce government spending and taxation and rebuild the Colombian military somewhat more feasible.
But money from Washington will not be enough to fix the country’s growing problems, which have long resisted easy solutions. Solving them will require institutional acumen and technical expertise, resources which de la Espriella’s coalition so far does not appear to possess in great abundance. Unlike Javier Milei, de la Espriella is no obsessive technocrat. The president-elect’s technical lead is his running mate, José Manuel Restrepo, an economist who served as the minister of finance under Iván Duque. But Restrepo, who was chosen to add some intellectual heft to the ticket, is a subdued and conservative personality in comparison with de la Espriella, and may struggle to exercise significant influence in government.
Managing the already fragmented Colombian legislature also presents the president-elect with a serious problem. De la Espriella’s party, Salvación Nacional, has just a single deputy in the lower house and four senators in the upper house. He will be entirely reliant on the cooperation of the various right-leaning parties in Colombia’s Congress—most of whom are uribista in orientation—for any legislative achievements, a precarious position. He has pulled in Rodrigo Lara, a veteran senator who was president of the party Cambio Radical, to serve as his interior minister and handle congressional affairs, but even if he manages to maintain good relations with Congress it will be supremely difficult for de la Espriella to push through the massive reductions to the Colombian state his platform proposes.
Colombia is in desperate need of a change of pace. Gustavo Petro has allowed the nation’s security to atrophy by pandering to criminals and terrorists. But de la Espriella, for all his fierce rhetoric, may have a hard time managing that transition. If support from Washington doesn’t appear in sufficient time or with sufficient effect, if he is unable to bend the traditional right to his will in the legislative branch, or if his crackdown on the cartels turns into a shooting war too hot to handle, he may join Daniel Noboa in the ranks of Miami businessmen-turned failed fire-breathing Latin American populists.
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