Abelardo de la Espriella supporters celebrate Sunday eveing in the city of Barranquilla in northern Colombia. With a 43.7% share of vote in Sunday's first round presidential election he goes forward to a run-off contest scheduled for June 21. Photo by Ernesto Guzman Jr./EPA
June 1 (UPI) -- Colombia's presidential election will go to a run-off vote in three weeks' time after neither of the two main candidates garnered the 50% of votes required to win outright in the first round.
Abelardo de la Espriella narrowly beat his rival and favorite to win, Ivan Cepeda, with 43.7% of the vote in Sunday's poll, compared with Cepeda's 41%, after a campaign marred by drone strikes, abductions and murder, including the assassination of candidate Miguel Uribe in summer 2025.
Paloma Valencia, the candidate of Uribe's Democratic Center party, threw her support behind de la Espriella, after coming in a very distant third with less than 7% of the vote, according to National Civil Registry preliminary results.
The run-off poll between political outsider de la Espriella and Cepeda, who is backed by sitting president Gustavo Petro, is scheduled for June 21.
