On May 31, Colombia will choose its next president from among several candidates. Historically one of the United States' strongest allies in the region, the coffee-producing nation distanced itself from Washington under the administration of former guerrilla fighter Gustavo Petro, beginning in 2022.

With an anti-imperialist rhetoric worthy of the 1960s — and of Castroist pamphlets — Petro went so far, just a few months ago, as to call upon the U.S. Armed Forces — while standing in the middle of New York City — to rise up against their commander-in-chief, Donald Trump. His stunt was short-lived, however, as the administration revoked his visa. In February, he was granted a temporary entry permit for a meeting at the White House, in an attempt to mend bilateral relations.

Now that Petro is on his way out, his chosen candidate for the presidential election is Iván Cepeda Castro. He is a man more intelligent than the current president, yet very similar in his anti-Americanism — not to mention his support for gender ideology and for a narrative shift that would whitewash the terrorist left that has bled Colombia dry for decades.

With less than a month remaining before the first round of the presidential election, a voting intention poll conducted by Cambio magazine places him in the lead with 37.2%. Following him, 20.4% of voters would cast their ballot for the conservative Abelardo De la Espriella, while the centrist Paloma Valencia occupies the third spot with a voting intention of 15.6%.

An Invamer poll conducted in late April outlined the same top three contenders, though it placed Cepeda at 44.3%, De la Espriella at 21.5%, and Valencia at 19.8%.

In any scenario, none of the candidates would surpass the 50% threshold required to win the presidency in the first round. Although Fidel Castro and Cepeda Castro are not related by blood, they share more than a few things in common ideologically. Both embrace statism and detest the free market — both economically and in the realm of ideas.

Cepeda Castro was born in Bogotá in 1962, but he completed his undergraduate studies in philosophy within the communist bloc of Eastern Europe, at the St. Clement of Ohrid University in Sofia.

Unlike De la Espriella, he is no outsider. He served as a Senator from 2014 to 2022, and for four of those years, he acted as a facilitator in the dialogues between the government and the Marxist military group known as the National Liberation Army (ELN), a group that remains active and controls a portion of the drug trade.

He was a founder and spokesperson for the National Movement of Victims of State Crimes (Movice), an organization established with the aim of “bringing together thousands of relatives of victims of crimes against humanity perpetrated by state agents and institutions,” according to his campaign website.

In other words, Movice does not seek the complete truth regarding Colombia’s internal conflict; rather, it seeks to elevate a narrative in which the Left is portrayed solely as a victim — never as a perpetrator — of the violence that has persisted since the 1960s.

Movice advocates for agrarian reform that would “democratize land ownership.” The issue of agrarian reform in Colombia could receive a significant boost should Cepeda Castro ascend to the presidency. His current political mentor, Petro, has reintroduced the measure to the House of Representatives — an initiative marketed by the Left as a key step toward “transforming the countryside,” achieving “agrarian justice,” or “resolving historical land disputes.”

However, the efficacy of this objective has already been thoroughly disproven in neighboring countries.

In Cuba, even sympathizers of Castroism — such as Jacques Chonchol, a U.N. advisor to the National Institute for Agrarian Reform from 1959 to 1961 — warned of the lack of productive incentives for more than 150,000 small-scale producers (those owning fewer than five caballerías of land). The result today is an island stripped of its once-thriving livestock industry, with 18% of its arable land now overrun by marabú — an invasive, thorny scrub.

The risk of a continuation of Petrismo in Colombia looms large. For this reason, figures such as Valencia and De la Espriella would represent the best options for the nation's economic and social progress. De la Espriella, in particular, has exposed the corruption of the political establishment — a group he refers to as “the usual suspects.”

These are the people who “turned politics into a profitable business, designed to live comfortably off the public purse while delivering no results,” stated businessman Indalecio Dangond B. in a recent column for the influential newspaper El Espectador. “Every four years, they reappear disguised as saviors — not to transform anything, but to renegotiate their continued place within the system. They do not contest elections out of conviction, but out of calculation.”

In the current political landscape leading up to the Colombian presidential elections, a united right wing would be a sure way to halt the radicalism of the Cepeda Castro faction.

A source currently lobbying to forge an alliance between Valencia and De la Espriella — who spoke for this article on the condition of anonymity — declared that Colombia stands “on the brink of the precipice.”

“With elections at the end of the month — and two conservatives splitting the Christian vote — the ruling party’s candidate is almost certain to advance to a runoff,” he estimated; he further noted that it is vital “to work with key figures on the Right to ensure they unite for the second round, thereby defeating the political continuity represented by President and former guerrilla Petro.”

Will there be unity, or will Colombia end up with another Castro?