The controversial lawyer and presidential hopeful Abelardo De la Espriella has confirmed what many had already anticipated: He will not take part in the right-wing interparty primary slated for March 8, 2026, intended to select a single candidate to represent the conservative bloc.
In a letter addressed to former president Alvaro Uribe, the sector’s top leader, De la Espriella reaffirmed his belief that his path must be different: His is a citizen-driven movement, backed by millions of signatures, not a traditional display of political parties. Consequently, he announced that he will go directly to the first round of the election as an independent candidate, endorsed by his movement Defensores de la Patria.
This decision deepens the crisis within the right-wing spectrum: What was meant to be a united front against the left is now splintering, while De la Espriella — who is currently the right’s strongest contender in the polls — argues that he cannot allow the popular mandate expressed in more than 4.8 million signatures to be diluted in an internal primary.
De la Espriella skips right-wing primary, stays in Colombia’s presidential race
In his letter to former President Uribe, De la Espriella emphasized that his candidacy does not follow the traditional rules of Colombian politics. He described his movement as a citizen-driven phenomenon born from “popular fervor,” and argued that taking part in a primary with traditional parties — and their respective political machines — would amount to betraying that citizen-driven momentum.
The candidate has defended the validity of the nearly 5 million signatures submitted to the National Civil Registry as proof of direct support from the people, and has insisted that this popular legitimacy must be respected. According to him, subjecting that citizen mandate to a partisan contest would “dilute” the mandate entrusted to him.
De la Espriella’s withdrawal from the inter-party primary laid bare the deep divisions within the right-wing and center-right bloc. While traditional figures in the sector insisted on the need to unite in order to forcefully confront the left, the lawyer’s decision showed that not everyone shares that strategy. Some players close to Uribismo expressed discomfort, although publicly the former president avoided delving into direct criticism.
Even so, De la Espriella’s citizen support places him in a privileged position: Recent polls show him as the right-wing candidate with the strongest prospects. In a scenario released by the firm Invamer, he would obtain 18.2% of voting intention, placing him behind the left’s frontrunner, Ivan Cepeda — 31,9% — and pushing former mayor and centrist Sergio Fajardo into third place with around 8.5%.
This landscape presents a paradox for the right: Although De la Espriella emerges as its strongest contender, his break with the unity mechanism threatens to scatter votes and, above all, to leave the traditional right out of the runoff — something that already happened in 2022, when independent Rodolfo Hernandez placed second in the first round and went on to challenge leftist Gustavo Petro for the presidency, with Petro ultimately winning the election.
What is certain is that this new division on the right could make it even easier for Cepeda to gain an advantage in the first or a potential second round, while also highlighting the public’s rejection of traditional parties and candidates, as happened in the most recent elections.
The Democratic Center’s candidates sink in the polls
The latest Invamer polls have highlighted the difficult moment the Democratic Center is facing in its run-up to the 2026 presidential elections. The surveys show that its candidates — Maria Fernanda Cabal, Paloma Valencia, and Paola Holguin — register such low levels of support that, as leftist senator and candidate Ivan Cepeda recalled during a parliamentary session, “together they don’t even add up to the poll’s margin of error.”
The remark, which quickly became a subject of political debate, encapsulates the magnitude of the crisis facing the party founded by former President Alvaro Uribe, the main reference point for the Colombian right over the past decade.
The party’s internal crisis has deepened with the recent departure of Andres Guerra, who decided to withdraw from the race because he disagreed with the system used to select the candidate. Added to this is the expulsion of Miguel Uribe Londoño, a decision that left the Democratic Center with an even smaller pool of potential renewal figures. The outlook appears especially complicated in a context in which the Colombian right is undergoing a full reconfiguration and searching for figures capable of competing with more consolidated options.
Uribe Londoño is now weighing what his strategy should be. One option is to launch an independent candidacy, although the window to collect the 600,000 required signatures is increasingly narrow and makes this path seem unlikely. The other possibility is that he ends up supporting Abelardo De la Espriella’s bid.
What is certain is that, as of today, the Democratic Center’s chances of regaining the presidency are rather slim, and the party will seek alliances outside the organization in order, at the very least, to prevent a second left-wing government.