Colombia reaches the May 31 presidential vote with security at the center of public debate, because the country has entered the campaign season while armed groups still control strategic corridors, pressure local communities, and profit from coca, illegal mining, and extortion. Human Rights Watch says 2025 was marked by one of the worst humanitarian tolls in a decade, and it attributes to OCHA (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) two figures that explain the scale of the crisis: more than 137,000 people were confined by threats or fighting between January and August, and more than 79,500 suffered mass displacement in that same period, already 53 percent above the total recorded in all of 2024.
That context gives unusual weight to the three main candidacies identified by the Congressional Research Service and private polls: Iván Cepeda of the Historic Pact, Paloma Valencia of the Democratic Center and independent candidate Abelardo de la Espriella. The surveys also note that if no one wins more than 50 percent on May 31, Colombia will hold a runoff on June 21, and that recent polls summarized by La Silla Vacía show Cepeda leading the first round while remaining vulnerable in a second round. In other words, the country is not choosing between security and insecurity, but between different ways of managing an already deteriorated security landscape.
If the Left wins
If Cepeda wins, Colombia would most likely continue along the path opened by Gustavo Petro’s Total Peace policy, which Law 2272 of 2022 turned into the legal framework for simultaneous negotiations with insurgent and criminal groups. Cepeda is a left-wing senator, human-rights activist and Total Peace negotiator who has pledged to prioritize peace, victims’ rights, anti-corruption action and rural development, while remaining skeptical of militarized drug policy. That profile suggests continuity, although probably with a more methodical style than Petro’s.
The main advantage of that route is clear: negotiations and bilateral ceasefires can reduce direct clashes between state forces and guerrilla groups, which in turn can lower battlefield deaths and give communities short windows of humanitarian relief. Yet the main weakness is just as clear, because Human Rights Watch says armed groups continue to apply violent strategies to control the population across the country, and because the State has often failed to protect civilians, investigate abuses and dismantle criminal structures effectively. Under a Cepeda presidency, Colombia could therefore see fewer direct state-insurgent confrontations while still suffering high levels of extortion, confinement, recruitment and displacement in peripheral regions.
That risk becomes more serious when the state does not arrive with judges, schools, roads, prosecutors, and social services after the ceasefire begins. The Total Peace agreement reduced military pressure in some areas without creating enough civilian state presence to prevent armed groups from governing daily life, and that gap helps explain why many communities still feel abandoned despite the language of human security. A left victory would likely keep the 2016 peace accord and transitional justice institutions alive, but it would still need a much stronger territorial strategy if it wants to convert negotiation into everyday safety.
If the Right wins
A Valencia presidency would mark a deliberate correction of the current model. She proposes a strong security plan to recapture territory from criminal groups, along with a counterdrug alliance with U.S. and European officials, while public campaign material tied to her platform frames that shift as a modernized “Plan Colombia 2.0”. In practical terms, that means Colombia would give the armed forces and police a more central role again, reduce the political space for ongoing negotiations, and rebuild security cooperation with Washington around deterrence and territorial control.
De la Espriella proposes an even sharper break. He supports military strikes on drug-trafficking targets in Colombia and aerial fumigation of coca crops, while he has embraced a Bukele-style language of maximum force, mega-prisons and zero negotiation. That scenario would likely produce the most abrupt change in rhetoric and operations, although it would also face the greatest institutional and human-rights concerns.
The appeal of a harder turn is easy to understand because Colombians have seen force reduce some indicators before. Earlier hardline strategies coincided with lower national homicide levels and fewer kidnappings in parts of the 2000s, although they also carried serious human-rights costs when oversight weakened. Human Rights Watch reinforces that warning by documenting unresolved accountability problems, collusion between security actors and armed groups, and the limits of reform inside the defense sector, even under the current government. A right-wing victory could therefore improve perceptions of control in some corridors and cities, but it could also trigger a new cycle of confrontation in rural zones where armed groups have entrenched themselves deeply.
What will not change easily
No matter who wins, Colombia’s security problem will remain tied to structural conditions that no campaign slogan can reverse quickly. Petro’s deemphasis of coca eradication has coincided with record cocaine production, and the UNODC 2023 monitoring report confirms that Colombia reached 253,000 hectares of coca and a potential production of 2,664 metric tons of cocaine, both record levels. At the same time, Human Rights Watch reports that the 170 municipalities prioritized by the 2016 peace accord still show a multidimensional poverty rate of 24.4 percent, more than double the national rate of 11.5 percent, which means armed groups still operate where the legal economy remains weak.
The post‑election challenge will be state capacity, not ideological purity. Without stronger enforcement and territorial reach, a left government risks normalizing criminal rule in the name of peace; and without social investment and strict oversight, a right government risks repeating short-lived gains and renewed violence. Colombia’s next president will face a security landscape where neither negotiation nor force alone will work because violence is rooted in local economies, weak institutions, and abandoned territories.