Colombia runoff candidates share paramilitary pasts
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- Cepeda and De la Espriella face off in Sunday's Colombian presidential runoff, with both candidates' lives shaped by paramilitary groups that fueled an armed conflict claiming nearly half a million lives.
- De la Espriella, a 47-year-old far-right Trump admirer, launched his legal career defending leaders of the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC), which the US designated a foreign terrorist organization in 2001.
- Cepeda's father, Senator Manuel Cepeda, was assassinated in 1994 by army officers linked to paramilitaries; the 63-year-old senator built his public career founding a movement representing the death squads' victims.
- De la Espriella dismissed a "possible recruiter" accusation from Cepeda as a "smokescreen" and counter-claimed Cepeda maintained a "narco-political" alliance with guerrilla groups to secure votes.
- Trump endorsed De la Espriella on social media after the first round, calling Cepeda a "radical left Marxist," while 11 Democratic members of Congress urged the administration to examine De la Espriella's AUC ties rather than campaign for him.
- La Silla Vacía reported that minority shareholders of De la Espriella's businesses include relatives of convicted AUC leader Hugues Rodríguez Fuentes, known within the group as "Comandante Barbie."
- The winner inherits Colombia's worst violence since the 2016 peace deal and takes office on 7 August; rightwing presidential hopeful Miguel Uribe Turbay was shot at a campaign event last year and later died.
Why it matters: The winner takes office August 7 and inherits Colombia's worst violence since the 2016 peace deal, choosing between Cepeda's modified "total peace" negotiations and De la Espriella's iron-fist militarization with "mega-prisons" in the Amazon. Trump's endorsement of the AUC-connected candidate, paired with 11 House Democrats flagging those paramilitary ties, makes the runoff a direct test of whether Colombia returns to confrontation or holds the peace line.
