LatAm in Focus: De la Espriella, Cepeda, and Colombia’s Political Divide
LatAm in Focus: De la Espriella, Cepeda, and Colombia’s Political Divide
Political scientist Dr. Sanda Borda examines the figures and forces shaping the presidential race ahead of the June 21 runoff.
The Colombian electorate sent a clear message with the two candidates they sent to the June 21 presidential runoff: they are no longer interested in politics as usual. Instead, 85 percent of first-round voters cast ballots for either far-right lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella or leftist Senator Iván Cepeda, with candidates connected to traditional center and center-right parties receding to the background. “[Colombia’s] political and ideological spectrum is now wider than it was before,” says Dr. Sandra Borda, a Bogotá-based associate professor of political science the Universidad de los Andes. In this episode of Latin America in Focus, the prominent political commentator and foreign affairs analyst tells AS/COA’s Carin Zissis that the country’s relatively new left-right divide has brought it closer to polarized political contexts more familiar to much of Latin America.
Still, she says, the center has an important part to play in the runoff, with candidates like Paloma Valencia, Sergio Farjardo and Claudia López pulling in a combined 2.8 million votes in the first round.
Self-described “outsider” de la Espriella has already gotten an endorsement from third-place Valencia, a center-right protegée of ex-President Álvaro Uribe. Borda says that while Uribe has a role to play in the election, de la Espriella’s unexpectedly high 44 percent first-round vote share means that he’ll be the one shaping the right’s agenda moving forward.
The left’s Iván Cepeda, the right’s Abelardo de la Espriella, and the center-right’s Paloma Valencia are battling to win the May 31 election.
Our guest
Sandra Borda is an associate professor with the Department of Global Studies and Political Science at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá. She has ample experience in the field of international affairs and combines her research with media contributions to prominent Colombian and global outlets. Dr. Borda holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Minnesota, a Master's degree in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin, and a Master's degree in International Relations from the University of Chicago. She served as a visiting researcher at ITAM in Mexico, the University of Toronto in Canada, the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, and the University of São Paulo in Brazil.
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