Colombia voted. The result is not yet official

June 22, 2026
Written by Dayana Mosquera

Yesterday, Colombians went to the polls to choose their next president.

Today, headlines around the world are reporting that far-right candidate and Trump ally Abelardo de la Espriella has won. Based on the preliminary vote count and reliable sources, that appears to be the case. De la Espriella leads government candidate Iván Cepeda by less than one percentage point, one of the narrowest presidential margins in Colombia’s recent history.

Yet there is an important distinction that many observers outside Colombia may not fully grasp: the election is not yet formally concluded.

What Colombians saw on election night was the preconteo, a rapid preliminary count designed to provide an early snapshot of the results. While it is typically a reliable indicator of the outcome, it carries no legal weight. The legally binding stage comes next: the escrutinio, Colombia’s official vote verification process. Conducted by electoral authorities, judges, and notaries, it involves reviewing tally sheets, resolving challenges and claims submitted by campaigns, and verifying the results before they can be formally certified.

For most elections, the distinction receives little attention because the margin is large enough that the final outcome is rarely in doubt. This time is different.

The margin separating the two candidates is less than one percentage point, roughly 250,000 votes. Iván Cepeda has announced challenges affecting thousands of polling stations and says his campaign will await the completion of the official review process before formally recognizing the result. The election now moves from election-night projections to the institutional mechanisms designed to provide legal certainty and public confidence.

Yet while that process is only beginning, political reactions have moved much faster.

Within hours of the preliminary count, President Donald Trump congratulated De la Espriella, while several conservative leaders across the hemisphere and beyond, including Javier Milei, Daniel Noboa, José Antonio Kast, Nasry Asfura, José Raúl Mulino, Giorgia Meloni, and Benjamin Netanyahu, celebrated the result as a victory for their broader political movement. Some of these figures had openly intervened in Colombia’s election during recent weeks; others are only now weighing in, treating the election as settled.

Whether the preliminary result ultimately becomes the certified result is precisely what the official count process is designed to determine.

But the speed of those celebrations highlights a deeper issue. Democratic legitimacy depends not only on votes being cast but also on institutions being allowed to complete their work. Respect for sovereignty means respecting the entire electoral process, not only the part that produces a favorable headline.

The international reaction also reveals a larger objective and scope. For many of the foreign leaders who openly backed de la Espriella, this election was never only about Colombia. It was viewed as part of a broader regional struggle over the political direction of Latin America. In that sense, the preliminary result is already being interpreted as a victory for what President Trump has rebranded as the “Donroe Doctrine” and for a foreign policy seeking to reshape the hemisphere in Washington’s image.

That interpretation did not wait for the official count. Within hours of the preliminary result, Republican Representative María Elvira Salazar declared that attention now turns to Brazil, where voters will choose their next president in October. For many of those celebrating abroad, Colombia is not the end of the story. It is the latest chapter in a broader regional political project.

What is also clear is that Colombia remains deeply polarized.

Nearly half of voters supported one vision for the country; nearly half supported another. The campaign exposed profound dissent over security, economic policy, peace, democracy, environmental protection, and Colombia’s place in the world. It also revealed something else: neither side is large enough to govern as if the other does not exist.

If the preliminary results are confirmed, Abelardo de la Espriella will inherit a country that cannot be governed through triumphalism, confrontation, or force alone. He would take office facing strong opposition, powerful social movements, and entire regions where political trust remains fragile. The challenge ahead will not simply be winning power but exercising it in a way that lowers tensions rather than deepens them.

For Iván Cepeda and his supporters, the result would also carry lessons. The campaign significantly narrowed what many analysts once viewed as a wider gap, mobilizing millions of voters and demonstrating that support for progressive politics remains substantial. Whatever the final outcome, nearly half the country has made clear that it expects its voice to be heard.

The coming days will be critical. The scrutiny of electoral authorities, the behavior of political leaders, and the resilience of democratic institutions will matter just as much as the votes already cast.

Global Exchange’s work does not end with an election. We will continue standing alongside our partners in Colombian civil society, monitoring the transition process, defending democratic space, and amplifying the voices of communities most affected by the decisions of those in power.

Sovereignty, democracy, and human rights are not settled on a single election night. They are defended every day that follows.

As Colombia moves toward its presidential elections on May 31, the country stands at a pivotal political crossroads — one that will not only shape its domestic future, but also carry significant implications for Latin America as a whole.

Often described as one of the last remaining strongholds of progressive governance in the region, Colombia now faces an electoral cycle marked by intense political competition, shifting alliances, and growing polarization. The results of the March 8 legislative elections have already begun to redraw the political map. A fragmented Congress, the absence of clear governing majorities, and an increasingly complex path toward coalition-building are defining what comes next. Presidential candidates are now positioning themselves in what is shaping up to be a highly competitive and uncertain race, one that the rest of the region is watching closely.

Yet the deeper challenges facing Colombian democracy are not new — and they will not be resolved at the ballot box alone.

For communities that have lived through decades of armed conflict, the 2016 Peace Agreement represented a promise that politics, not violence, would be the terrain on which Colombia’s future was decided. That promise remains unfulfilled. Victims and former peace signatories who have tried to enter political life continue to face obstacles that formal guarantees have done little to remove. At the same time, in the wake of the legislative elections, questions about the reliability of the electoral system itself — including how votes are counted, who oversees the process, and whether institutions can be trusted — have moved to the center of public debate.

These questions will follow Colombia all the way to May 31.

This Thursday, we invite you to join us for the webinar Elections in Colombia: Challenges for Democracy, where we will take a closer look at this moment through the perspectives of those directly engaged in it.

Featured speakers:

Aura Camargo Mercado is a social leader and victim of Colombia’s armed conflict, and a former candidate for the Special Transitional Peace Districts (CITREP) — constituencies created for communities most affected by the conflict. She brings a firsthand perspective on the limitations that victims and peace agreement signatories face in accessing the right to be elected.

Rubén D. Acosta O., Scrutiny Delegate before Colombia’s National Electoral Council (CNE), brings a clear view of how the electoral system functions in practice, where it falls short, and what the coming months will demand of it.

Together, they offer something rarely available in these conversations: a grounded, firsthand account of what Colombian democracy looks like from within.

Written by Matthew Thorne, a delegate with Global Exchange’s international election observation mission in Honduras.

The question of U.S. intervention in the Honduran elections is in the air as around 6 million eligible voters head to the polls this November 30th. Amidst U.S. escalation of its rhetoric and military presence in the region, political tension and the spectre of violence is ratcheting up as later this week Hondurans will choose their president, all 128 congressional seats, 20 seats in the Central American Parliament, 298 mayors and over 2,000 municipal council members.

Several logistical mistakes and delays that occurred during the March primaries are certainly cause for concern, but of equal concern is that those errors are being used as pretext to undermine the integrity of the upcoming elections and set the stage for contesting the results. Improvements to the electoral systems since the March primaries “demonstrate that the process has a solid operational foundation for election day, even in areas where delays were identified in previous monitoring” according to the latest independent watchdog report and this has assuaged some, including U.S. Senator Peter Welch (VT).

However, the three leading parties continue to trade accusations and exacerbate fears amongst a polarized electorate. Attempts by the opposition parties to erode trust in the process has further contributed to a nervous atmosphere that could spell the possibility of contested results and post-election turmoil. For context, the 2021 elections saw 32 politically related homicides.

Hanging over the contest is a legacy of challenges to Honduran sovereignty. 2025 marked the 16th anniversary of the coup d’état that ousted then President Manuel Zelaya (2006-2009), with the infamous papering-over of the coup by the U.S. State Department under Hillary Clinton. The failures of the subsequent series of U.S.-backed post-coup governments, notorious for electoral fraud and defying constitutional term limits, are highlighted by the 45-year sentence being served by former President Juan Orlando Hernandez of the National Party (2014-2022), who sits in a U.S. prison for drug trafficking. Meanwhile, Honduras remains the most impoverished country in Central America and voters have thus found little reason to trust in its institutions.

U.S. officials are not soft spoken on the issue. Just this week U.S. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (FL-27), of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee characterized the Libre Party candidate Rixi Moncada as “the heir to the communist throne” and claimed that Moncada “wants Honduras to look just like Cuba.” The rhetoric from Salazar sets up a clear pretext for the Trump administration to target a potential Moncada win by lumping her together with other ‘communist’ targets in Latin America.

Salazar, who is heading to Honduras to lead a U.S. congressional delegation of observers, was sure to state the quiet part out loud – “the eye of the United States is upon Honduras this November 30th.” These statements addressed to the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee of which she is the chair, echo the long shadow of U.S. expectations of Honduran conformity and seemingly celebrate the infamous coup d’état, “16 years ago, the military saved its country from communism and today, they need to do the same thing.”

The rhetoric from Salazar, who underlines that her message is “supported by the State Department and the Trump administration”, carries significant weight amidst the buildup of U.S. military activities in the region, which includes the precedent-setting hosting of U.S. military attack planes in neighboring El Salvador, as well as airstrikes in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific killing 83 people which the UN has labeled as ‘extrajudicial executions’.

A long dependable framework of Honduran economic, political and military deference which was designed by the U.S. for the original Banana Republic in the late 1800s, may be in question. In January, current Honduran President Xiomara Castro of the Libre Party threatened to expel the U.S. military from Soto Cano Air Base in response to the Trump Administration’s mass deportation plan. Soto Cano is the largest U.S. military base in Central America, currently houses Joint Task Bravo, and carries the legacy of U.S. Colonel Oliver North who utilized the base for the Iran-contra operations in the ‘80s. Castro stated that “without paying a cent for decades they maintain military bases in our territory, which in this case would lose all reason to exist in Honduras.” Castro’s bold positioning was one single point in the long story of U.S.-Honduran relations that will continue to be written this November 30th.

Binational-Agenda-PMPJ Download

On October 18th Guatemala will celebrate its (non-violent) Democratic Revolution of 1944 with a new, democratic revolution, one that has arisen to defend their newly elected president, Bernardo Arévalo.

President-elect Arévalo does not take office until January 14th – nearly five months after his election on August 20th – and corrupt forces within the existing Guatemalan government have sought to use this long transition period to derail his administration before it even begins. But Guatemalans have risen up to oppose them, mounting a powerful, nationwide campaign of resistance demanding the resignation of the corrupt officials behind what Arévalo calls a “slow-motion coup.”

The resistance campaign, buoyed by the critical leadership of “Ancestral Authorities” of Indigenous communities has been costly but resilient – even in the face of repression like the deadly armed attacks in Malacatan last Monday.

Édgar Gutiérrez who is a former Foreign Minister turned journalist. For years, his opinion columns and analysis published in many media outlets have helped the public better understand how corruption structures operate, as well as the links between corrupt officials, corrupting elites, and organized crime. This has earned him constant legal and media attacks, which is why he now lives in exile in Mexico.
Gregorio “Goyo” Saavedra is a young journalist and lawyer who has specialized in analyzing and denouncing “Lawfare” the corrupt manipulation of the legal system to attack political opponents. He will explain the “absurd” legal tactics being deployed by the losers of last August’s election as they attempt to undo its clear mandate for deep, institutional reform.

Global Exchange will be investigating, observing, and reporting on Guatemala’s historic (run-off) presidential elections.
Tune in here for updates and news.

The August 20th election is in the international spotlight because emergent democratic forces represented by the Semilla Movement and their candidate, Bernardo Arévalo, won a run-off spot in the general elections that took place last June and then successfully defended it against trumped-up legal attacks that sought to disqualify their party and close the door on democracy.

Hundreds of observers are expected to be in the country during the election.

Tension between Guatemala’s authoritarian ruling structures and the democratic impulses of its people are nothing new.

In 1944 (during the final days of WWII) Guatemala had a popular uprising that brought Bernardo Arevalo’s father, Juan Jose Arevalo Bermejo out of exile and into the Presidency, where he built a broad consensus, modernized education, established the first ever labor code and created the social security system that still exists today.

When Arévalo’s successor, President Jacobo Arbenz, sought to expand those gains with a land redistribution program he came up against an implacable oligarchy that welcomed the notorious CIA led coup of 1954 that snuffed democracy and led to generations of terror, repression, civil war, and the genocide of Indigenous communities –much of it with the direct or implicit support of the United States.

Things began to improve in Guatemala following the signing of the 1996 Peace Accords, but recent decades have seen an upsurge in criminal violence, environmental destruction, and rampant corruption, while the structures of extreme wealth and enforced poverty continue much the same as in1944

History may or may not be repeating itself as the candidacy of Bernardo Arevalo takes center stage, but there is no doubt the Movimiento Semilla has created high expectations and infectious positive energy throughout Guatemala and Latin America.

Our delegation is being convened by CESJUL, the Bogota, Colombia based legal training and human rights organization. They have assembled a stellar group of journalists, human rights specialists, scholars, and elected officials from Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, and the United States.

Our observers will be just that, observers. And they will report on what they see. That’s where you come in. Working closely with [Prensa Comunitaria] the journalists on our team will deliver contextual analysis and up to the minute coverage of this hotly contested event.

For the latest on upcoming pre, during and post election webcasts and live updates please visit our webpage.

¡Viva la democracia!

We, the members of the International Mission of Human Rights Observation and Defense, which includes the organizations which have signed on below, issue this emergency call to national and international public opinion and civil society, and assert and demand the following:

The political and institutional crisis which is unfolding in Perú is one of the gravest ones in its history as a republic. Its current stage began with the removal from office and detention of former President Pedro Castillo on December 7, 2022, which installed the current illegitimate régime headed by Dina Boluarte and her cabinet;
The interim government’s negation of the people’s will is reflected in the imposition of states of emergency which violate fundamental rights, and reliance on violence as a mechanism of repression that has especially targeted Peru’s Andean indigenous and campesino communities in the country’s most marginalized regions in the south, north, and in Lima, resulting in the more than 72 deaths and hundreds injured and unjustly detained. Impunity for these state human rights crimes has been the prevailing rule and has impeded their investigation through measures that include the centralization of case files, which undermines regional prosecutions;
The principal current demands of the Peruvian people include: closure of congress, new elections, the convening of a constituent assembly to approve a new constitution, the resignation of Boluarte and her cabinet, and immediate freedom for former President Pedro Castillo;
Despite the violence and repression which has resulted in hundreds of people arbitrarily killed, injured, detained, and disappeared due to abuses by state military, and police authorities, impunity continues to prevail, without a single sentence imposed upon those responsible, disregarding the convergent, well documented reports and recommendations issued the UN, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and international missions.
Peru’s popular movements have designated July 19th as the target date for the third “taking of Lima”, which has been convened by the families of victims of repression from throughout the country, human rights activists, and students seeking to exercise their internationally and nationally recognized rights to freedom of assembly, expression, and social protest;
The interim government must cease its efforts to stigmatize and criminalize the popular exercise of these rights through processes of intimidation that include what is understood historically in Perú as the methdologies of “terruqueo” (labeling of dissidents as supposed “terrorists”);
We denounce and reject the authoritarian and repressive rhetoric and actions of the interim government headed by Dina Boluarte and the president of the Council of Ministers, which put the country’s most vulnerable sectors and especially its indigenous peoples and communities in danger of renewed repression;
We also denounce the presence of U.S troops on Peruvian territory which is intended to protect the economic interests of extractivist corporations and industries such as mining and oil, and which have intensified the country’s prevailing climate of social intimidation and repression.

We demand an end to the concerted campaign of intimidation, disinformation and social panic which seeks to associate the “taking of Lima” with ostensibly terrorist organizations such as Shining Path, and urgently call for the international community to be alert to prevent the recurrence of new crimes against humanity and continued impunity in Perú.

SIGNATURES

International Tribunal of Conscience of Peoples in Movement (ITCPM) (México)

CESJUL (Centro de Estudios Socio Jurídicos Latinoamericanos – Colombia)

Grupo de Trabajo (GT) “Fronteras, Regionalización y Globalización” del Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales (CLACSO)

National Lawyers Guild (San Francisco Bay Area chapter) (USA)

Global Exchange (USA)

Instituto Ambientalista Natura (Perú)

Comité de Solidaridad con Perú (México)

American Association of Jurists (AAJ)

International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL)

International Association of People’s Lawyers (IAPL)

Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers (UK)

Progressive Lawyers of Turkey (CHD)

Guatemala’s June 25th (first round) elections surprised pundits who had expected a sweep by right wing forces who had tilted the electoral playing field by cracking down on free speech and dissent – jailing journalists and sending others into exile.

Nevertheless, a relatively new party called Semillas — that had emerged from the student-led mobilization of 2015 and 2016 — came in second place, stunning even its own party activists. Their candidate, Bernardo Arévalo (son of Guatemala’s first ever democratically elected president), is now in the runoff elections scheduled for August 20th.

Challenges emerged immediately as conservative elements of the power structures that have ruled Guatemala for decades sought to use their influence over the country’s judiciary to discredit the election tally. But to date those efforts have failed, and Guatemala looks to be headed toward an August 20th runoff.

Global Exchange has been watching closely – consulting with our trusted contacts in Guatemala and with the team of Latin American observers we sponsored to report on the first round.

To deepen our understanding of what is happening and what may be in store during next month’s final election round, we held a webcast (in English) with former Guatemalan Congresswoman Sandra Moran and researcher Megan Thomas.

Sandra Moran is Guatemala’s first openly lesbian member of the Congress. She organized the country’s first lesbian group in 1995, and was elected in 2015. She is well-known for her vocal support for women’s rights, Indigenous women’s rights and LGBTQIA+ rights in Guatemala.

Megan Thomas is a political analyst, social science researcher and development worker in Guatemala. She was born in New York City of US parents and raised in Guatemala, where she has lived most of her life. She participated in the Guatemalan revolutionary movement between 1970 and 1992 and is currently part of the FOCO action research collective working on generating information and analysis on and for social organizing in Guatemala.

Ted Lewis, Global Exchange co-Executive Director hosted the conversation.

Please take a listen to this special webcast about protecting election integrity, voting rights, and democracy in the age of Facebook. Our guests discussed what they see as the most perilous threats to democracy that are being promulgated on Facebook and what can be done about them—through government regulation, legal efforts, changes to company policies, and pro-democracy activism.

– Ángel Díaz is counsel in the Liberty & National Security Program of the Brennan Center for Justice. His work focuses on the intersection of technology with civil rights and civil liberties.

– Yaël Eisenstat is the former Global Head of Elections Integrity Operations for political advertising at Facebook. She is a key voice and public advocate for transparency and accountability in tech.

– Myaisha Hayes is the Campaign Strategies Director at MediaJustice, where she oversees the launch of campaigns such as #NoDigitalPrisons and #ProtectBlackDissent.

– Jesse Littlewood is the Vice President of Campaigns at Common Cause, which is training election protection social media monitors to combat cyber-suppression in their communities.

Sponsored by the Protest Facebook Coalition, Media Alliance, and Global Exchange.

It is hard to focus on Honduras when Oligarchs are on the move in DC to pass an historic tax giveaway to America’s already wealthiest.

Nevertheless, we bring you troubling news from Honduras, where the sitting president appears to have lost in his re-election bid, but is using fraud and force to stay in office.

US actions can greatly influence the outcome of the brewing crisis, but today’s headlines (speculating that Trump will install CIA Director, Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State)give little comfort to our friends and allies who have taken to the streets of Tegucigalpa and others cities to protest this power grab.

We are speaking up for democracy in Honduras because our fates are linked.

The letter below is signed by several organizations. Sign-on today to Demand transparency and respect for the vote in Honduras.

You can also contact the US Embassy and your elected officials with the demand that they support the Honduran people in defense of democratic process.

US Embassy Tegucigalpa: 011-504-22385114; 011-504-22369320

US Captial Switchboard (to contact your Senators and Representatives) (202) 224-3121.

International Organizations Demand Transparency and Respect for the Vote in Honduras

As organizations in defense of human rights and democracy, we urgently call on the Honduran government to respect the vote and provide full transparency, credibility and legitimacy in all aspects of the vote count and elections results.

Recent actions of the Supreme Elections Tribunal have cast legitimate doubts on the process that must be cleared up. The Tribunal suspended public reporting of the count the night of the elections when results showed a 5-point lead for the opposition candidate Salvador Nasralla, and returned 36 hours later with numbers showing a surprise lead for the incumbent candidate, Juan Orlando Hernandez. The lack of transparency and unlikely reversal of the voting trend have raised questions regarding the Tribunal’s impartial role and professionalism and accusations of fraud that must be taken into account. Furthermore, the Constitution explicitly forbids the current president’s candidacy, and the legal maneuvers to extend his power via re-election lack consensus.

As members of the international community, we join Hondurans in demanding fair and forthright elections that enhance rather than erode the fragile democracy.

We call on our governments, and especially the US government, multilateral organizations, international finance institutions and civil society organizations to support the Honduran people in defense of democratic process. We urge the Honduran government to refrain from any acts of repression, denial of rights, censorship or criminalization of protest and commit ourselves to monitor the situation closely, using all international legal tools available to assure respect for the human rights of all and a continued commitment to non-violence.

The Honduran people have fought hard to restore rule of law since the 2009 coup d’état. Many gave their lives in this fight, which is far from over. As in 2009, what happens in this small nation will be a bellwether for the entire region that either reaffirms democracy or strengthens anti-democratic forces. We cannot be indifferent at this historic juncture.

Signed

Center for International Policy (CIP)
Alianza Américas
Global Exchange
Guatemalan Human Rights Commission
Chicago Religious Leadership Network on Latin America
Alliance for Global Justice