The Colombian left has acknowledged the narrow victory of far-right candidate Abelardo de la Espriella in Sunday’s presidential election. After two days of uncertainty, Senator Iván Cepeda—the candidate for the ruling *Pacto Histórico* (Historic Pact)—explicitly conceded defeat in the runoff on Wednesday. De la Espriella won by a slim margin of less than 1% of the vote, a result that significantly eases post-election tension. Since Sunday night, the senator had stated that he acknowledged the rapid preliminary count—completed within just a few hours—but insisted on waiting for the official tally (now considered virtually complete) before accepting defeat.
“At this stage of the official tally, I have decided to accept the result emerging from the process, which indicates that Abelardo de la Espriella is the new President of the Republic,” Cepeda said in a statement framed as a message to the nation.
He emphasized, however, the “extraordinarily narrow” margin between the two candidates and noted that his campaign secured 12.7 million votes, compared to the 11.3 million with which Gustavo Petro was elected four years ago.
Cepeda conceded defeat after the National Registry indicated the previous day that the municipal vote tallies—the first stage of a complex process—showed a 99.997% match with preliminary data, and on the same day the National Electoral Council is preparing to officially certify De la Espriella’s election.
The leftist candidate fell just 250,000 votes short of his opponent, who garnered nearly 13 million votes. The vote totals for Cepeda and De la Espriella are the highest in Colombia’s history for a presidential election, resulting from a population exceeding 52 million, an aging demographic that has brought the electoral roll to 41.4 million potential voters, and the highest turnout on record—over 63%.
