Columbian polls may determine the future of Latin America and Caribbean

By Laura Capote 
This May, which began with International Workers’ Day, has seen us navigate one of the most defining moments in the regional landscape: the presidential elections in Colombia have entered their final phase. With four intense weeks shaping the scenario that will be fully unveiled on 31 May, when the elections take place, we will find out what the balance of power will really be in a country that today determines many of the paths in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Colombia in the Continental Landscape
Colombia has always been a priority in the U.S. geopolitical strategy towards Latin America and the Caribbean. Historically, it rose as one of Washington’s key hemispheric allies in ensuring U.S. presence in the Americas, with particular importance given its presence in the Amazon and its vast border with Venezuela. However, with the continent’s third-largest population—more than 50 million people—and the region’s fourth-largest economy, Colombia has, over the past nearly four years of government, initiated a structural shift in the country’s dominant order with regards to its policy of sovereignty and regional integration, and today stands as one of its main defenders.
With firm stances in defense of sovereignty against the attacks launched by the United States on the region—ranging from false accusations of ties to drug trafficking against President Gustavo Petro, to the bombing of fishing boats in the Colombian-Venezuelan Caribbean, the intensification of the blockade against Cuba, or the bombing of Caracas and the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores on January 3—Colombia has positioned itself as one of the leading regional and global voices in defense of human rights, even bringing to multilateral forums accusations of genocide against the terrorist state of Israel and the United States for their actions against the Palestinian people.
The break of its strategic alliance with Colombia has been a major concern for the United States in the region. However, through fraudulent methods of electoral intervention, as well as the breeding and funding of leaders in the region, the U.S. has restored a landscape of allied governments across the continent. The 'Shield of the Americas' snapshot illustrates a new configuration of the regional landscape that further highlights the importance of the processes still being carried out by progressive-leaning administrations in Latin America and the Caribbean, particularly the governments of Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia.
These concerns, which are not merely rhetorical, were brought to light with the publication of the so-called 'Hondurasgate,' a scandal that has demonstrated the political coordination and collaboration of key figures from the continent’s far-right, under Washington’s guidance, with the aim of attacking the aforementioned governments and seeking to destabilize those countries. Led by former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández—convicted by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York of conspiracy to traffic narcotics, use of firearms, and conspiracy to traffic firearms, and pardoned by President Donald Trump days before the elections in Honduras—Hondurasgate revealed the involvement and funding of Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu, and far-right administrations across the continent, such as that of Javier Milei in Argentina, in the creation of a 'digital unit' aimed at undermining the administrations of Petro and Sheinbaum in particular, and the electoral landscapes unfolding in these countries. This clearly responds to the objectives revealed in the national security strategy published by the White House last December, which refers to the reinforcement of the Monroe Doctrine under the now-Trump Corollary.
Colombia’s positions in current geopolitics have signaled a significant transformation in a country that was once the main ally of the U.S. in the region. However, imperialism’s concerns and the reasons behind the attacks by the continental right stem not only from factors related to foreign policy but also from the gains achieved by Gustavo Petro’s government in the country’s domestic policy.
The Government of Gustavo Petro and the Beginning of the Process of Change
On 7 August, the government of Gustavo Petro will come to an end, and with it will conclude the country’s first experience of progressive leadership. The administration began four years ago with the proposal to build Colombia: A Global Power of Life, as the government program was titled. Winning elections in June 2022, it was able to develop, during its years in the Casa de Nariño, a true transformation in the country, in those sensitive and priority areas contained in its campaign promises.
The government of the Historic Pact has marked a watershed moment in the history of a country that had always been led by the most powerful families of the oligarchy and the national bourgeoisie—landowners and large-scale farmers—who were consistently aligned with foreign interests on our soil. With the arrival of Gustavo Petro, the tables turned, as the popular Republican song goes, and the executive branch placed at the center of its interests the guarantee and expansion of the rights of the country’s impoverished majorities, as well as the advancement of reforms aimed at social transformation for the working classes.
The power structures were threatened by the progress made by the Historic Pact administration in strategic areas: under the Agrarian Reform policy, more than 5 million acres were formally transferred to the country’s rural communities, and the peasantry was formally recognized as a subject of rights. Unemployment fell to 9.2 percent in February 2026, the lowest figure of the century while nearly 1.6 million people were lifted out of monetary poverty, and nearly 2.5 million were lifted out of hunger, despite attempts by the opposition to halt these efforts. A labor reform was consolidated, reducing the workweek and increasing overtime pay and the minimum living wage was raised by a cumulative 23.4 percent over the four years of the administration, improving the incomes of 2.4 million people. There was also a significant increase in funding for public higher education, responding to a long-standing demand of the student movement and an increase in the pension bonus was guaranteed for more than 3 million retirees. With regards to the energy transition, solar energy surpassed coal in annual electricity generation, and nearly 300 energy communities were created. Added to these figures is the world record cocaine seizure of 3,417 tons, a 39 percent reduction in national deforestation, and the full repayment of the debt to the IMF inherited from the previous administration, according to the government’s own figures.
Continuing the Project Through the Candidacy of Iván Cepeda and Aida Quilcué
Today, Colombia faces not only the opportunity to continue the project of change launched four years ago—which has improved living conditions for the vast majority—but also the chance to deepen a project centered on life rather than capital.
Iván Cepeda is one of the most prominent figures in Colombia’s social struggle, always close to the country’s popular movement. With a long history of defending human rights and serving in the Congress of the Republic, where he has been a senator since 2014, Cepeda himself is a victim of the political, social, and armed conflict, as his father, Manuel Cepeda Vargas—a historic communist leader and senator for the Patriotic Union—was assassinated in 1994 in Bogotá, as part of the genocide committed by state and parastatal forces against the militants of this political party.
For her part, Aida Quilcué is one of the country’s leading indigenous leaders. She is a senior advisor to the Cauca Regional Indigenous Council (CRIC) and currently serves as a senator in the Congress of the Republic. Aida is also a victim of the conflict, as her husband, also an indigenous leader, was killed by the army in 2008.
In their government platform 'The Power of Truth,' organized around the proposal of three revolutions, Iván and Aida have summarized the main needs facing the Colombian people today—needs that began to be addressed under the government of Gustavo Petro and that must be priorities for the continuation of the project for change: the Ethical Revolution, the Economic and Social Revolution, and the Political and Democratic Revolution.
In their proposal, the Ethical Revolution entails a radical transformation in the way politics is conducted, as well as in social consciousness, education, and culture.
In a country with deep wounds related to violence, corruption, indifference, patriarchal violence, and the use of politics as a venue for making easy money—and in a regional and global context marked by cruelty and despair—a revolution of this nature represents a commitment to humanity and the future. The Economic and Social Revolution, focused on overcoming the poverty and inequality suffered by the vast majority of the country’s population, within which lies the proposal for an Agrarian Revolution involving the redistribution, restitution, and recovery of land—one of the most important elements for the Colombian people, given that the origin of the conflict is deeply rooted in land tenure and land grabbing in the country—as well as other proposals linked to territorial transformation and the urban revolution.
Finally, a Political and Democratic Revolution, focused on strengthening democracy through the broadest possible participation in the design and decision-making of policies affecting the vast majority, as well as the recognition of society’s own organizational structures; in the struggle for peace with social, economic, and environmental justice to overcome the political, social, and armed conflict through dialogue and negotiation, and in the defense of human rights and the right to life, so frequently violated throughout the country’s history.
The campaign carried out by the Historic Pact has, in its very form, borne witness to the fundamental principles of its political proposal: characterized by austerity and simplicity, without large billboards or slots during prime time on national television, Cepeda has based his campaign on traveling the length and breadth of the country and filling public squares to publicize his proposals, through word-of-mouth on the streets, coordination with social, political, union, and student organizations, among others, intertwined with the popular creativity that today fills thousands of windows across the country with photographs and designs featuring the faces of Iván and Aida.
The Balance of Power Behind the Masks of the Far Right
All pollsters point to a worrying outlook for the far-right forces inhabiting Colombia’s political landscape: the real possibility that Iván Cepeda could become the country’s next president, either in the first or second round. With percentages ranging from 37 to 44 percent of voting intentions for Cepeda, the far right—be it the traditional faction, represented by Paloma Valencia’s candidacy for Álvaro Uribe Vélez’s party, the Democratic Center, or the 'new' faction, led by Abelardo de la Espriella, a homegrown Milei who boasts of not being part of the usual political establishment and receives funding from some of the country’s most powerful families—are locked in a competition over which of the two factions can defeat Cepeda, resorting to every possible means.
In this context, the so-called Jupiter Project was unveiled at the end of April—a plan by companies and think tanks from Colombia’s right wing that develops workshops and digital strategies to influence the elections through the mass generation of content on social media with three central objectives: to sow fear, outrage, and uncertainty regarding the Pacto Histórico’s candidacy, reaching an audience of nearly 17 million people, according to Jaime Bermúdez himself, former foreign minister under Uribe Vélez and organizer of the project.
These opposition forces—both far-right, though with different styles—enter this first round of the election with significant divisions, but they will undoubtedly have no qualms about building bridges of unity in the event of a runoff, as long as it means defeating Iván Cepeda. By no means is the situation simple, as they have on their side the entire political machinery of the country, a large part of the business community, and Washington’s blessing to do whatever is necessary to defeat the Historic Pact and achieve outcomes like the one seen in the Hondurasgate scandal.
For their part, the challenge facing the country’s popular forces is to deepen the spaces for dialogue and to campaign with the Colombian people in the streets and squares; to listen, to understand, to propose, and to explain that we are in the midst of a historic moment. It is a responsibility not only to the national situation but above all to the regional and global context: achieving a victory in Colombia is a victory for the future, the certainty that overcoming violence and dispossession is possible through the continuation of alternative processes in the political direction of the continent. This is to be done always in the company of the great masses of the people, with their historical clarity and their unreserved defense of joy; like García Márquez wrote: the builder of 'a new and sweeping utopia of life, where no one will be able to decide for others how they die, where love will prove true and happiness be possible, and where the races condemned to a hundred years of solitude will have, at last and forever, a second opportunity on earth.'
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This article was produced by Globetrotter. Laura Capote is a Colombian social activist and researcher. She is Co-Coordinator of the Nuestra América Office at the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research and a member of the Continental Operational Secretariat of ALBA Movimientos, where she is responsible for the Continental System of Political Education. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Social Communication Sciences from the University of Buenos Aires and is pursuing a master’s degree in International Relations at the National University of La Plata