Right-Winger de la Aspriella Poised to Win Tightest Election in Colombian History

Latin America Correspondent Jon Bonfiglio speaks to Darryl Morris for Times Radio. 

Transcript

Darryl Morris 0:00

Firstly, in the meantime, the uh preliminary count for Colombia's presidential runoff is practically complete. It is or has been the sort of tightest election in in modern Colombian history uh up until today, I suppose. Um but we do seem to have a winner. Jon Bonfiglio is our Latin American correspondent, is watching very closely. Uh Jon, where are we at?

Jon Bonfiglio 0:20

Hey Darryl. So um yeah, less than 1% separated from candidates for 49.67% for right wing er de la Espriella and 49.69% for leftist Ivan Cepeda. But as you said, I think it's important to sort of uh contextualize that this is the pre-count, the preliminary count, and that it was developed to give rapid results and instead of uh confidence in the voting process. But it is informative, not binding. Now, some media agencies have called the results for the De La Espriella, but uh fundamentally Colombia will now engage in a full scrutinized count, which is expected to take uh a couple of days. De la Espriella, the sort of Trump-anointed candidate, has declared uh victory, and a number of other right wingers have done the same in an effort to sort of uh make this a done deal. The current president Gustavo Petro has said that um uh Colombia should wait, uh wait the full vote. Now, de la Espriella is the likely winner, but I think it is a bit premature to call it directly. I would say the best phrase for us to use at this point is that he is poised to win.

Darryl Morris 1:21

Right. Okay. So in and and i I I mean, sort of claiming victory seems like a sensible thing to do, I guess, if you are a nudge your head.

Jon Bonfiglio 1:30

I mean, look, I think 20 years ago this would not have been seen, right? 20, 30 years ago, but no, uh, it's one of those things that you would have there would have been a more sober process, but we now live in in a much shoutier world where, of course, declaring victory and saying that something has happened is much more important. Now, again, that's not to say that this is not going to take place, but but it's it's a completely different landscape. And I think it's also worth worth bearing in mind, going back to the fact that this is the tightest election in uh you know modern Colombian uh history, that this is not unique to Colombia. I mean, the same thing has has happened in Peru. There was a the runoff election there, and it seems as though right winger Keiko Fujimori has has won that one, but we don't have a definitive result on that, um, on that yet. The same thing happened in Honduras in in this December, that went on for a month. And I think the real story here is, which of course is international, is the level of polarization right across Latin America, because what you what you end up having is um is candidates that are at completely different ends of the political uh spectrum and and nobody in in the middle. So, you know, even if um as as seems likely that de la Espriella does does win, and that gets uh formally announced in the next couple of days by the by the Electoral Council in Colombia, the truth is that he's going to be leading a uh a country based on nearly 50% of the vote, actually less than 50% of the vote, and that is um, you know, that's a tough ask for anyone.

Darryl Morris 2:51

Okay. And and just tell us then, Jon, sort of remind us about how this fits into this wider trend that we've been following, haven't we? Uh, that is bringing some of these Latin American companies uh countries into Donald Trump's orbit.

Jon Bonfiglio 3:04

Yeah, and I I think it's also worth saying that um uh there's definitely been a right-wing sweep across Latin America. I wouldn't say that by any stretch of the imagination, these are all sort of Trumpian candidates. Again, Keiko Fujimori in Peru, she's her own um uh her own woman, José Antonio Kast in Chile, is of course, is definitely of the far right, but he's not a sort of full Trumpian candidate. I think the the clear ones are, of course, Bolsonaro, who's now in prison, who uh was in um in in power in in Brazil and uh was very definitely sort of the precursor to this to this wave, and then we've got Javier Millei, of course, in another major democracy in in Argentina as well, sort of anarcho-libertarian, uh, and then a number of other candidates that have that have sort of taken office as well. I think what you can definitely say is that there has been a sweep of of the right wing, and in part it is because of the Trump, because of Donald Trump's influence. But I think um the the other two major factors have been because of the fact that um Latin America is seems is seen currently not to be economically functioning for for most people in the region, and also because fairly clearly there is a um significant fear and actuality of organized crime having taken a grip on communities across the region, and this favors the sort of rhetoric, the sort of um the hardline security stance, militarization rhetoric de la Espriella and a number of other figures.

Darryl Morris 4:27

And it's interesting you should talk about that sort of Trump Trump's relationship with some of those right-wing leaders on the southern continent as being a bit more complex, because we've been considering this weekend uh Donald Trump's relationship with Giorgia Meloni, uh the Italian Prime Minister, who is sort of sort of in his image to a degree, or at least her sort of roots are in his his image. He she has been much more liberal, um, much more sort of EU-facing NATO facing as a leader. So, you know, with with that caveat, they're not exactly cut from the same cloth completely. Um but but she she could be really and in and and sort of, you know, for all intents and purposes is an ally in Europe, and their relationship has been very much soured this weekend. Um it feels like it's trying to understand how Donald Trump maintains and forges relationships with right-wing leaders around the world is is becoming more complex.

Jon Bonfiglio 5:19

Yeah, I th I think so. Um fundamentally, I think Trump's endorsement or Trump's support clearly opens up space. It opens up space on the kind of maverick, right, the the sort of apolitical, non-traditional um spaces, but it also comes with a with a cost, I think. And so um especially in Latin America, which has a let's say complex extended history with the United States, I think it's not as straightforward as just sort of jumping into bed, so to speak, with with Donald Trump. So it is sort of a situation which is weighed up politically. And a number of figures have decided, especially the the more outsider figures who don't have a sort of a history or a trajectory of party or political legacy, um, decide that their one chance to win, to become the uh the winning candidate, is to basically sort of ape Donald Trump and other figures like Javier Milei and Jair Bolsonaro. Whereas those who perhaps come from a slightly more conventional right-wing, sort of traditional political landscape, even if they are of the extreme right, will um will come to the decision more usually that uh they can do it on their and they actually don't need the support or uh or weight uh that that Donald Trump brings to the party.

Darryl Morris 6:30

Yeah, okay. Um a sort of brutal conflict internally in Colombia has been the backdrop to this to this election. What happens over the next uh how how long does this process take? What is the sort of transition of power likely to be like?

Jon Bonfiglio 6:45

So um we expect a for sort of full count to come in in the next 40 hours, and then the transition takes place on August the 7th. So we're a sort of a couple of months away, uh well, less than about six weeks away uh from that. And and and I would expect um de la Espriella is announced as a winner, which it will formally happen at some point soon, I expect that he will begin again in a Trumpian way to announce a whole series of measures um and and policies which are going to absolutely U-turn on the current peace process in in Colombia and open up a complete vacuum uh in that regard. Um so you know that's where that's where we are. What level de la Espriella pushes into that space with if he if he is true to his word and what he's promised in the election, or if he sort of pulls back a little bit, we wait and see. But I think again, thinking considering the fact that he is uh he's sort of a facsimile of Donald Trump, then I I would expect that to be loud, brash, aggressive, and groundbreaking.

Darryl Morris 7:40

Okay. Uh Jon, thank you, my friend. Always good to talk to you. And uh we'll we'll keep an eye on that story, I think, and and perhaps come back to Colombia in in the coming weeks and see how that uh transition process does play out. Jon Bonfiglio, who is our man in Latin America with us on Times Radio this morning.