Then we'll tighten the screws for another four years
Cepeda maintains first-place lead but faces allegations of armed group endorsement; De la Espriella rises despite sexism controversy; Valencia's support erodes. Security concerns dominate: assassination threats against De la Espriella, phone hacking allegations against Valencia, and reports of criminal groups pressuring voters.
- Iván Cepeda leads at 36%, Abelardo de la Espriella at 31.5%, Paloma Valencia at 16%
- Armed dissident group controls territory in Guaviare, Meta, and Caquetá through coercion and extortion
- Colombia's ambassador to Haiti suspended for campaigning for Cepeda; election scheduled for May 31, 2026
- De la Espriella's campaign spent 14+ billion pesos; Atlas Intel faces potential suspension for methodological irregularities
New Atlas Intel polling shows leftist Iván Cepeda leading at 36%, while right-wing Abelardo de la Espriella gains ground at 31.5%, and Paloma Valencia drops to 16%. The race intensifies amid security threats, sexism allegations, and armed group interference.
Two weeks before Colombia's presidential election, the race has tightened into a three-way scramble marked by security threats, allegations of criminal interference, and public figures behaving badly on live television. A new Atlas Intel poll released Friday shows leftist senator Iván Cepeda holding his lead at 36 percent, but the margin has narrowed. Abelardo de la Espriella, the ultraconservative lawyer, has climbed to 31.5 percent—up from 29.5 percent in the previous survey. Paloma Valencia, the uribista senator competing for the right-wing vote, has fallen to 16 percent, down from 20.9 percent just weeks earlier. The polling firm itself faces scrutiny: auditors have recommended the National Electoral Council suspend Atlas Intel's operations, citing methodological irregularities in its digital sampling approach.
The campaign has become a minefield of personal and institutional crises. De la Espriella made sexist comments toward two female journalists in separate interviews—calling one ignorant for questioning his legal philosophy, and making crude remarks about his genitals to another on a radio comedy show. He later apologized, framing the second incident as humor in a comedic context, but the damage was immediate. Sergio Fajardo, the centrist candidate, called him a "buffoon, sexist, violent, authoritarian, and aggressive." Paloma Valencia criticized the behavior while defending press freedom. Even Álvaro Uribe, the former president backing Valencia, weighed in without naming De la Espriella directly: "Women of my country, Paloma will make you respected."
Meanwhile, the integrity of the election itself is under question. Recordings surfaced of a dissident FARC commander named Rogelio Benavides expressing his preference for Cepeda to win, saying "I hope our comrade Cepeda wins... then we'll tighten the screws for another four years." The commander controls territory in Guaviare, Meta, and Caquetá, where his group enforces mandatory ID registration, extorts payments from communities, and issues "coexistence manuals" that amount to civilian intimidation. Cepeda immediately condemned any pressure from armed groups, calling it "absurd" to think he would owe his victory to criminals. Claudia López, another candidate, seized on the recordings to argue that over five million Colombians live under armed group coercion—a number that could swing an election won by less than 700,000 votes in 2022. She demanded guarantees against "armed proselytism," noting that no bodyguard can protect against it.
Security threats extend across the field. De la Espriella's campaign reported that his security team thwarted a suspected assassination attempt in Envigado, Antioquia, when someone posing as a security staffer was found carrying weapons and surveillance equipment. Days earlier, De la Espriella had claimed the National Intelligence Directorate was plotting to kill him using a sniper—an accusation the agency flatly denied, noting it has no military capacity. Paloma Valencia reported that her phone was being hacked, with her security-related messages in someone else's hands. She hired a lawyer to investigate.
Public officials have also crossed ethical lines. Colombia's ambassador to Haiti, Vilma Velásquez Uribe, was suspended from her post through election day after telling a Haitian media outlet that Cepeda was a "magnificent candidate." The Procuraduría, which oversees civil servant conduct, opened an investigation. Cepeda himself rejected the endorsement, insisting that no public official should campaign on his behalf. In a separate development, Cepeda's campaign reported spending zero pesos on over 100 campaign events—a claim that drew scrutiny given that other leading candidates had disclosed substantial spending. De la Espriella has spent more than 14 billion pesos; Valencia, around 6 billion.
Yet Cepeda has also consolidated support. Dissident liberals, distancing themselves from the traditional Liberal Party's backing of Valencia, formalized their endorsement of the leftist candidate at a hotel event in Bogotá. Former Interior Minister Juan Fernando Cristo, himself a liberal, promised that the party's base would work to elect Cepeda in the first round on May 31. Former president Ernesto Samper, in a video conversation with Cepeda, reaffirmed his backing, citing shared commitments to social reform, multilateralism, and irreversible peace. The family of Carlos Gaviria, a historic leftist leader who died in 2011, signed a letter supporting Fajardo instead, criticizing both the left's corruption scandals and the right's history of human rights violations.
With two weeks remaining, the election hinges on questions no poll can measure: whether armed groups will successfully coerce voters in remote regions, whether security threats will destabilize campaigns, and whether the public will accept the result as legitimate. The Electoral Council is preparing to vote on whether to suspend Atlas Intel, the very firm providing the numbers by which the race is being tracked. President Gustavo Petro has called a meeting with 309 international election observers to discuss electoral software—a signal that confidence in the process itself is fragile.
Notable Quotes
I hope our comrade Cepeda wins... then we'll tighten the screws for another four years— Rogelio Benavides, dissident FARC commander (recorded)
No public official should intervene in political proselytism— Iván Cepeda, rejecting the ambassador's endorsement
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why does a poll showing Cepeda ahead by five points feel like it's not really about the numbers?
Because the numbers are almost beside the point now. What matters is whether those votes can actually be cast freely. If armed groups are telling people in three southern departments who to vote for, the percentages become fiction.
But Cepeda condemned the armed group endorsement immediately. Doesn't that distance him?
It does, publicly. But the damage is structural. Voters in those regions know the dissident commander prefers Cepeda. That knowledge changes the calculation—it makes voting for him feel like submission rather than choice, even if Cepeda himself wants nothing to do with it.
De la Espriella's sexism comments seem almost quaint compared to all this.
They're not quaint. They're a window into how candidates treat people they don't respect. If he speaks to journalists that way on live television, what does it say about how he'd treat citizens with less power? And it's costing him—Valencia's dropping partly because she's positioning herself as the alternative to that behavior.
So Valencia's the beneficiary of De la Espriella's mistakes?
She should be. But her own campaign is being hacked, she's facing assassination threats, and she's still third. The right is fracturing, and Cepeda's left is holding. The real question is whether the election even happens cleanly enough to count.
What does Petro calling in international observers actually accomplish?
It's a signal that the government itself doesn't trust its own institutions. When the president has to invite 309 foreign observers to watch the electoral software, you're admitting the system is compromised. That's not reassurance—that's panic dressed up as transparency.