Mauricio Dueñas Castañeda, EPA/ShutterstockUS President Donald Trump has predicted a “much better relationship” between his government and Colombia after preliminary results suggested that the right-wing candidate Abelardo de la Espriella had won in Sunday’s presidential run-off.
The official, but not legally binding, preliminary vote count showed de la Espriella beating his left-wing rival, Iván Cepeda, by a razor-thin margin of less than one percentage point.
Cepeda has not yet conceded, saying he would wait for the results to be cross checked, a process which usually takes several days.
Trump had endorsed de la Espriella ahead of the run-off vote and derided Cepeda as a “radical Left Marxist”.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Trump said that de la Espriella had “won easily”, even though his lead of 0.96 percentage points in the preliminary count is the narrowest in recent Colombian history.
Writing on Truth Social, Trump said he was looking forward to working together “to build a powerful relationship”.
The relationship between the two historic allies had suffered in recent years as Trump traded insults with Colombia’s outgoing president, the left-winger Gustavo Petro.
Trump had called Petro a “sick man” and a “drug-trafficking leader” without providing any evidence, while Petro had said that the US president was basing his immigration policy on that of the Nazis.
Following the US military operation to seize Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in January, Trump had also remarked that a military operation targeting neighbouring Colombia sounded “good”.
Asked by a Colombian journalist about how he saw the relationship between the US and Colombia developing following Sunday’s election, Trump said “it’ll be better, he [de la Espriella] is going to be a great president”.
De la Espriella campaigned on a promise to crack down on drug-trafficking gangs and criminal organisations which have long blighted the country, which is the world’s largest producer of coca, the raw material used to make cocaine.
He has said that he wants Colombia to join the “Shield of the Americas”, an alliance of Latin Americans countries and the US aimed at combating cartels.
President Petro had derided the alliance’s inaugural summit held in Miami in March, saying that “the 17 countries gathered are the least experienced in the fight against drugs in the Americas”.
De la Espriella has promised to co-operate more closely with the US in the fight against drug trafficking, saying that he plans to bomb drug-trafficking gangs and allow the US to have military bases inside Colombia.
Some voters who backed Cepeda, expressed their concern that under de la Espriella Colombia could see a resurgence of human rights abuses such as the “false positives” scandal, when more than 6,400 civilians were killed and falsely passed off as left-wing guerrillas to boost the army’s kill rate during Colombia’s armed conflict.
But in his victory speech, de la Espriella insisted that while he would come down hard on drug traffickers and “bandits”, he would do so within the confines of the law and the constitution.
The new president will be sworn into office on 7 August.
