Colombia's 2026 presidential race intensifies as candidates unveil running mates and campaign strategies

Colombia's presidential race is taking shape in the weeks before the May 31 first-round vote, and the endorsements are coming fast now—each one a signal about which way the political winds are blowing. The former vice president Óscar Naranjo has thrown his weight behind centrist Sergio Fajardo, calling him the leader capable of pulling the country back from its polarized edges. Naranjo's letter emphasized Fajardo's commitment to constitutional respect, democratic deliberation, and peaceful coexistence—a direct counter to what he sees as the extremism on both sides. Fajardo, who made a point of wearing a tie for the first time in years when he registered his candidacy, is running with biologist Edna Bonilla as his running mate. He's positioning himself as the antidote to chaos, framing his campaign around education reform and fighting corruption.

On the right, the endorsements are coming from the military establishment. Four former defense ministers—Marta Lucía Ramírez, Diego Molano, Guillermo Botero, and Juan Carlos Esguerra—along with 32 retired generals signed a letter backing Paloma Valencia, the right-wing Centro Democrático candidate. Their concern is explicit: they see illegal armed groups gaining territorial control and strengthening their numbers, and they believe Valencia has the capacity and will to defend the state's authority. Valencia is running with economist Juan Daniel Oviedo, a choice that has created ideological friction within the right. Oviedo supports same-sex adoption and recreational cannabis legalization; Valencia opposes both. Yet they've united around a shared fear: that a second term of Gustavo Petro's leftist government would slide from populism into authoritarianism.

The left's candidate, Senator Iván Cepeda, has found himself in a firestorm over comments he made about Antioquia, Colombia's second-most-populous department and a traditional stronghold of the right. In a speech attached to his government platform, Cepeda described Antioquia as the "cradle of paramilitarism, narco-economics, and state terrorism," and explicitly named former president Álvaro Uribe and his circle as central figures in that history. The backlash was immediate and fierce. Antioquia's governor, Andrés Julián Rendón, responded with a video saying the attacks were born of "hatred and ignorance." Uribe himself weighed in. Even President Petro, Cepeda's political godfather, felt compelled to defend him—though Petro's defense only amplified the controversy, as he doubled down on the historical facts about paramilitarism's origins in the region. Cepeda later issued a statement saying his words were being distorted, that he had praised Antioquia's entrepreneurial spirit and economic contributions even as he condemned its violent past. The damage, though, was done.

Meanwhile, the National Electoral Council announced it has completed the vote count in 19 departments and eight special peace-building constituencies. The council's president, Cristian Quiroz, called the process transparent and quick, with minimal complaints. The scrutiny of Senate elections is expected to begin soon, though Quiroz declined to estimate when the final count would be finished. In Antioquia itself, the Centro Democrático consolidated its dominance: it won more than 744,000 Senate votes—a 74 percent increase from 2022—and captured seven of the department's seventeen House seats. Yet the Pacto Histórico, Petro's movement, emerged as the second force in the chamber with three seats, a sign of leftward movement even in the right's heartland.

Other shifts are reshaping the race. Luis Carlos Reyes, the former commerce minister known as "Mr. Taxes," withdrew as Mauricio Lizcano's running mate due to complications in his wife's pregnancy. Lizcano, running as an independent, said he understood the decision and would announce a replacement. The centrist Claudia López chose Leonardo Huerta as her vice-presidential running mate. And in a move that drew criticism from the left, the small New Liberal Party, led by Juan Manuel Galán, endorsed Valencia—a choice that prompted accusations of betraying the party's liberal heritage, with former senator Roy Barreras invoking the memory of Galán's assassinated father, Luis Carlos Galán, who stood against the right.

President Petro has been unusually active in the campaign, defending Cepeda and attacking Valencia's security policies, despite rules that prohibit sitting presidents from campaigning. When criticized for this, Petro responded that he has the right to answer attacks on his government. He also made a homophobic comment about Oviedo, calling him and his supporters "feathers and sequins," a remark that drew a sharp rebuke from the vice-presidential candidate himself. The European Union's election observation mission reported that state media had favored Petro and his movement while giving limited and often negative coverage to the opposition—a finding Petro dismissed as cynical. The campaign is still four months away, but the battle lines are already drawn, and the intensity is only rising.