Cepeda’s team has said it recognizes the count. The results were part of a preliminary count and will still need to be legally scrutinized.

De la Espriella’s hardline security rhetoric was popular with supporters. He promised to scrap negotiations with armed groups that have taken place under President Gustavo Petro’s Total Peace policy, increase defense spending, as well as build mega-jails – mirroring El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele.

He’s also pledged to reduce the size of the state and kickstart the economy by bringing in more investment and increasing growth from three to seven percent.

While his policies are branded right wing, analysts say this is a different style of right-wing politics Colombia has not seen before.

“This is an outsider right, anti-establishment, focused on cultural battles, and connected to the regional wave represented by Milei, Kast, Bukele and Trumpism more than to Colombia’s traditional conservative movement,” Ruben Erazo, a political consultant, told Latin America Reports. “It speaks the language of social media rather than party headquarters.”

Erazo says it was not just policy pledges that attracted voters, but a rejection of the current government under President Petro. 

The number of fighters in armed groups has doubled since 2022 when Petro took office, recruited by FARC dissidents that didn’t disarm after the 2016 peace agreement, as well as other groups such as Clan de Golfo and the ELN.

While analysts point to a range of factors for the decreasing security situation, many voters blame what they perceive as weak security policies and dialogue with armed groups.