Abelardo de la Espriella.Image: keystone
Following allegations of electoral fraud by the outgoing left-wing government against the camp of elected Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella, he has suspended the formal transition process.
Jul 8, 2026, 12:38 amJul 8, 2026, 1:57 am
Just a month before he took office, the right-wing lawyer accused the head of state Gustavo Petro and his political movement of wanting to cling to power.
Petro had previously announced that it would not recognize De la Espriella’s narrow election victory in the June 21 runoff election in the South American country. He would still hand over power on August 6th, the current president wrote on X after De la Espriella stopped the transition process.
In the presidential election, the candidate supported by US President Donald Trump received around 49.6 percent of the vote, while the left-wing government candidate Iván Cepeda received around 48.7 percent. Petro himself was no longer allowed to run because the re-election of the president is prohibited by the constitution.
Left government camp calls for “civil disobedience”.
According to Petro, the election results in the US state of California were manipulated using algorithms that are said to have been developed by private Israeli intelligence companies. Cepeda admitted his narrow defeat in the runoff election, but called on Colombians to “civil disobedience”.
De la Espriella spoke of an attempted coup by the government camp. “We cannot sit at the negotiating table with a gang of coup plotters and corrupt people,” said the election winner in a video message on the (sda/dpa)