The candidate, Abelardo de la Espriella, will face a senator from the left-wing party of the outgoing president, Gustavo Petro, in a June runoff. Listen · 8:57 min Share full articlePresidential candidate Abelardo De La Espriella addressing supporters in Barranquilla, Colombia, on Sunday.Credit...Sergio Acero/ReutersBy Annie CorrealGenevieve Glatsky and Luis Ferré-Sadurní Colombia’s heated presidential election headed to a runoff on Sunday, preliminary official results showed, as a far-right candidate advanced in what could herald another gain for the right-wing wave sweeping elections across Latin America. The candidate, Abelardo de la Espriella, will now face Iván Cepeda, a senator from the left-wing party of the outgoing president, Gustavo Petro. Mr. De La Espriella, whose rise came late in the campaign, resembles a new breed of flashy populist leaders in Latin America, like El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, who share President Trump’s hard-line approach to crime and have pledged to apply it to drug traffickers. With 100 percent of the votes counted, results released by Colombia’s national civil registry revealed an electorate split down the middle. Mr. De La Espriella received 43.74 percent of the vote, and Mr. Cepeda 40.90 percent. Because neither candidate had more than 50 percent of the vote, a runoff will be held on June 21. On Sunday night, President Petro said that he would not accept the preliminary results until an official vote count was complete. Mr. Cepeda, a longtime human rights advocate, managed to hang on to the broad base of support for Mr. Petro’s political project, which has sought to represent poor and disenfranchised populations long left out of the halls of power. Mr. Petro was limited to a single term.
Original Source: NYTimes
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