Presidential candidate Ivan Cepeda has accepted the victory of his opponent Abelardo de la Espriela.
Published June 24, 2026
BOGOTA, Colombia – Colombian presidential candidate Ivan Cepeda this morning formally conceded his defeat to far-right populist Abelardo de la Espriela after a close runoff election.
Mr. Cepeda acknowledged the validity of Sunday’s preliminary results, in which Mr. de la Espriela had a lead of less than 1%, but said he would wait for the legally binding final tally of votes, known as scrutiny, before conceding defeat.
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“I have decided to accept the outcome of this process, which shows that Mr. Abelardo de la Espriela is the new president of the Republic,” Cepeda said in a livestreamed speech on Wednesday.
Although the vote verification process has not been fully completed, the National Registration Authority, which oversees elections, announced yesterday that Sunday’s preliminary vote count was “99.997 percent” accurate after revisions by municipal-level judges. The vote will now need to be verified at the sectoral and national level.
There were doubts among Cepeda’s camp about the legitimacy of the voting process, and President Gustavo Petro, who was closely involved in the campaigns of leftist candidates, openly accused fraud and foreign interference before and after the election.
“Election manipulation has been proven. While we cannot say that what has been revealed guarantees (Cepeda’s) election victory, it is a fact,” Petro wrote on Monday.
The president has for months warned of vulnerabilities in vote tabulation software and clashed with the National Registrar’s Office.
The president’s distrust is largely based on the 2022 parliamentary elections, in which the Historical Accord Coalition won around 500,000 votes in a closely-scrutinized vote count.
The recent memory of this vote led Petro and many Cepedistas (Cepeda supporters) to believe that Sunday’s difference of about 250,000 votes between Cepeda and de la Espriela could be overturned.
But the National Register recorded high accuracy in both the preliminary count for the March parliamentary elections and the first round of the May 31 presidential election.
Mr. Petro also said that U.S. election interference undermined the final result, as President Donald Trump broke with tradition and endorsed Mr. Abelardo.
“President Donald Trump’s direct intervention invalidates Colombia’s election,” Petro wrote in yesterday’s X-Post.
But Cepeda’s concession appears to put distance between him and the president who founded the Historical Accord movement.
“This suggests that there is some sort of schism between Petro and Cepeda,” said Sergio Guzman, director of political risk consultancy Colombia Risk Analysis. “As Petro’s term comes to an end, Cepeda is likely to become the opposition leader.”
Cepeda, who is currently expected to lead the Historical Accord Party in the Senate, struck a conciliatory tone in a speech this morning. “I am doing this as a responsible act of democracy and contributing to harmony, peace and dialogue among the Colombian people.”
