Polls have indicated that the main opponent of Iván Cepeda, candidate of President Gustavo Petro (who cannot seek re-election because local legislation does not allow consecutive presidential terms) in the presidential election in Colombia, will be lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella, 47 years old.
Surveys indicate that he is the closest name to Cepeda and in some surveys he has even appeared in first place for the dispute, which will have the first round on May 31st.
Espriella created the Defenders of the Fatherland movement and is compared to Argentine president, Javier Milei, for defending proposals for economic freedom and cutting public spending. Another similarity is that the animal symbol of her campaign is the tiger – in the victorious race for Casa Rosada in 2023, Milei adopted the lion as her “mascot”.
Other conservative agendas he defends are restrictions on abortion and an “iron fist” against organized crime.
“Three months ago, after a year and a half of reflection, I made the most important decision of my life: I left a peaceful life in Florence [na Itália] and I returned to my homeland to save and rebuild it,” Espriella said at a rally in Bogotá in November.
“I said I would only enter politics if the country was in extreme danger — and God showed me that the time had come. This is not just a political battle, but also a moral and spiritual one. Evil resides in the House of Nariño,” he added, citing the seat of the Colombian presidency. “The Tiger has awakened and, with his love, is invincible.”
On that occasion, according to information from the newspaper El País, American congresswoman María Elvira Salazar, from the Republican Party, declared her support for Espriella in a video message.
“The distance between Petro and [o presidente americano, Donald] Trump benefits no one. It is not good for Colombia’s economy, nor for its political future. I hope that Colombia reaches the place it deserves”, said the parliamentarian.
Extremely critical of the current leftist president of Colombia, Espriella wrote in a message on
However, Espriella has her own controversies. He was criticized for having proposed the legalization of 10% of the money derived from drug trafficking and other crimes in Colombia.
“Why not legalize 10% of the illegal capital that currently exists in Colombia due to drug trafficking, illegal mining and all types of crimes? Why can’t we do this with illegal mining, drug traffickers and other criminals?”, he said, in an interview with Semana magazine.
In his work as a lawyer, Espriella was questioned for having defended the former senator and former president of the Colombian Federation of Livestock Farmers (Fedegán) Jorge Visbal, arrested this month after his sentence to nine years in prison, on charges of links with the paramilitary group Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC), was confirmed by the Supreme Court of Justice.
However, in 2009, the Colombian Attorney General’s Office shelved its investigations into Espriella’s alleged links with the AUC and, in 2017, into his alleged attempts to extort the paramilitaries.
The lawyer also represented businessman Alex Saab, appointed as front man for former Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, and David Murcia Guzmán, founder of the company DMG, accused of a pyramid scheme that defrauded more than 200,000 savers.
Last year, responding to criticism about his professional life made by Enrique Peñalosa, former mayor of Bogotá and pre-candidate for president, Espriella said that his work as a lawyer has always followed ethical and legal parameters.
“It surprises me, respected Enrique Peñalosa, that, being such a cultured and experienced man, you continue to confuse the lawyer with the client. Just so you can rest assured: I have never been punished, neither criminally nor disciplinary, for my work as a defense lawyer. In any case, I respect your opinion”, he wrote in X.
Regarding Saab, Defenders of the Fatherland alleged in a statement that Espriella defended the businessman “when there was still no sign of relations with the Maduro regime” and that the lawyer stopped representing him when he refused to collaborate with the United States Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).
