Far-right millionaire Abelardo de la Espriella wins Colombia’s presidential runoff

Abelardo de la Espriella, who defeated leftwing senator Iván Cepeda, has promised to adopt an iron fist approach against criminal groups. Photograph: Jaime Saldarriaga/AFP/Getty Images View image in fullscreen Abelardo de la Espriella, who defeated leftwing senator Iván Cepeda, has promised to adopt an iron fist approach against criminal groups. Photograph: Jaime Saldarriaga/AFP/Getty Images Far-right millionaire Abelardo de la Espriella wins Colombia’s presidential runoff Leftwing opponent alleges vote count irregularities after Trump-endorsed lawyer secures narrow majority The Trump-admiring far-right millionaire lawyer and self-styled “outsider” Abelardo de la Espriella has won Colombia’s presidential runoff, defeating the leftwing senator Iván Cepeda. With 99.65% of ballots counted in the preliminary vote tally, de la Espriella had secured 12.91m votes, or 49.65%, just 248,310 more than Cepeda, who received 12.67m votes, or 48.7%. A further 1.6% of ballots were cast blank. The margin was narrower than in the first round three weeks ago, when de la Espriella had beaten Cepeda by 673,000 votes. De la Espriella’s victory marks a sharp swing back to the right after four years under Colombia’s first and only leftwing president, Gustavo Petro, who was barred by the constitution from seeking re-election and therefore backed Cepeda as his successor. The result is also being seen as further evidence of a wave of far-right candidates sweeping presidential elections across Latin America , after recent victories by Nasry Asfura in Honduras and José Antonio Kast in Chile, while Keiko Fujimori currently leads the vote count in Peru. Like them, de la Espriella also received the endorsement of the US president, Donald Trump – although only after winning the first round. When Petro leaves office in about six weeks, only Mexico, Brazil – which will hold elections in October – Uruguay and Guatemala will remain under leftwing governments in the region. In a post on social media, Petro alleged irregularities in the preliminary vote count released by the National Civil Registry, the independent public body responsible for organising Colombia’s elections. Without providing evidence, the president claimed that the registry was allegedly “uploading forms … without the signatures of election jurors” and said that “those polling stations must be immediately challenged”. Petro also wrote that he would only recognise the outcome of the official scrutiny process, which is expected to take about two more days. “No president can be declared yet. It is the scrutiny process that determines who the president is,” he said. In the first round, the president also alleged fraud in the preliminary count without presenting evidence, drawing widespread criticism from election experts. Historically, the difference between the preliminary count and the official scrutiny in Colombian elections has been less than 1%. In a campaign dominated by the violence that has once again engulfed th