this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2026

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178

Far-right millionaire wins Colombia’s razor-tight presidential election (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 18 hours ago by abc@suppo.fi to c/world@lemmy.world

23 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Politics aside, dude seems like a genuine scumbag.

top 23 comments

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[–] Danitos@reddthat.com 23 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

Colombian here, I can give some context, at least from my perspective.

Current president is Petro, a left wing president. Cepeda is the candidate from there same party. Abelardo is the far right candidato that won.

Petro has done an awful job. I'll add some examples in a comment. Cepeda seems better than Petro, but lacks criticism against him, so people add Petro's shortcommings into Cepeda's candidature.

On the other hand Abelardo got sold as an outsider to the classical politics, as he came out of nowhere, and 1 year ago nobody knew who he was. He's actually been an ally of Uribe (our most controversial president in recent history; far right as well) and the traditional right, just simply not as involved in politics. He also got his fortune by defending and being an ally of criminals (think an IRL Saul Goodman). He's beyond awful and like OP said, a genuine scumbag (e.g., in an interview, he laughed while remembering how he used kill cats with explosives).

Some people were gonna vote against Petro no matter what. Some people really ate the lies that Abelardo, a man that got his fortune by allying with criminals, will fight really hard against criminals. Some people think both candidates were awful, and had to choose the least awful of both of them. And that's how we got him as our next president.

[–] Danitos@reddthat.com 10 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

Examples of Petro's missmanagments:

For context, keep in mind Colombia is a rather poor country, that has been in an ongoing armed conflict spanning several decades.

See for example his "Total peace" program, in which he wanted to resolve conflicts with armed groups via dialogue rather than violence. While this sounds very good on paper, the reality is that the majority of said groups simply acted in bad faith, and used the program as an opportunity to grow bigger. Number of combatants in said groups grew like 50%; extorsions: up 25%; terrorism: up 90%; kidnappings: up 290% (!). And yet he and Cepeda insists on the program, instead of realizing you can't take that route with some groups that simply act in bad faith.

Both of them are also pushing for a "Constitution Asambly", a way in which we can create a complete new Constitution. Our current one is from 1991 and allows it to be constantly modified, but enforces some limitations of power to the president, which they want to remove (like the CNE, an election overviewer and also the National Bank independence from there current president's hands). He famously promised not to do that in both his 2018 and 2022 campaigns, but once he got elected, started pushing for it in 2024.

Health sector also got hit baddly (it was bad, but not this bad), corruption has been rampant (which, being fair, has always been the case) and the country got bankrupted. Petro genuinely also looks like he's constantly high in drugs, I'm not even kidding.

He's also constantly crying on Twitter about how the elections have been fraudulent, despite not showing evidence, or spreading missionformation proved to be false. All of these generate an uneasy feeling of his party keeping the power for other 4 years.

[–] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 8 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

In the 21st century, Presidential systems seem to be uniquely vulnerable to fascist politics. Not just Trump, but also Bolsonaro, Bukele, and the Chilean and now the Colombian examples as well. Parliamentary systems are of course not immune (cf Meloni and Orban) but they seem to be more resilient. At the same time, eg. in Turkey, the move towards authoritarianism seems to also be coupled with a move towards more and more presidential models. It seems fascists love the kinds of institutional shortcuts that strong executives can take.

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 8 points 7 hours ago

Man, Colombia can't catch break, can it?

I'll start making a bingo card for this one

[–] spacegoat@lemmy.world 71 points 15 hours ago (2 children)

People are plain stupid all over the world

[–] stoly@lemmy.world 9 points 7 hours ago

This is the truth. They almost always vote by their current emotional state, too.

[+] schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works -9 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Case in point: your comment.

I'm on the left, but international internet conversations are always like this because people think “left = good” and “right = bad”, regardless of whether or not a country is heading into hyperinflation to sustain leftist policy.

People in the United States, suffering under decades of corporate centrism, have no reference point for leftist economic policies failing, just FDR's programs which were pretty awesome all around.

[–] GreenBeard@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

It would be really nice if the system produced more than 2 options, you know? Sometimes the leftist party has very poor leadership or their ideas are just played out and it needs to lose power, but when the only alternative is the equivalent of throwing yourself in a fire because they're openly criminal and corrupt, you're damned if you and damned if you don't, si?

[–] schipelblorp@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Yes, it does suck. Problem is human society. “The right” represents corporate interest, and the left should represent the people's interests, but too often the left just represents an extractive clientislist state. Whatever you call them, systems reward themselves. It's why I'm pessimistic about government.

But the thing is all the assholes thinking they're so smart because they'd never vote for a right-candidate and that everyone in those countries are so stupid for voting for right candidates, all the people downvoting my comment, are just an example of the globality of stupidity.

So it's not looking good for the human race.

[–] GreenBeard@lemmy.ca 1 points 27 minutes ago* (last edited 26 minutes ago)

Because they are stupid for voting for a right wing candidate. He's going to turn on them immediately and destroy their livelihoods because that's what they do. That's all the right wing ever does and has ever done. They're not here to help you. They're here to help themselves, usually to the fruits of your labour. And then they call us thieves for demanding our cut of the wealth back. The right wing is just organized crime with better PR, that's all they've ever been and that's all they'll ever be. Oh they'll dress it up in a song and dance about some nostalgic nonsense or another, it's all a spectacle to keep you distracted while they pick your pocket. "Oh we're the party of law and order" bullshit. They'll complain about crime, loudly and for hours to anyone who will listen, but their "solutions" are usually just more ways to profiteer off of it while pretending their useless gestures are "Doing something."

At least they're more honest about it than the damned centrists, but given the choice of being stabbed in the back or in the face, I'd say I'd rather not be stabbed at all.

[–] phutatorius@lemmy.zip 62 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Well, Colombia's fucked.

[–] Damage@feddit.it 18 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Shit and they were doing so good lately

[–] Danitos@reddthat.com 5 points 8 hours ago

Not really, Petro did an awful job. Some violenta crimes were going throught the charts (e.g., kidnappings increased by 290% since 2022). The health sector was also hit very bad.

I think it's is precisely Petro's blunders and Cepeda's lack of criticism a main reason of why we'll have this Aspriella clown as a president.

[–] Anonymous_Leaker@lemmy.world 7 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

"millionaire" Now I think that means bought the election.

[–] Kekzkrieger@feddit.org 34 points 17 hours ago

Surely nothing wrong with having rich people make politics ... surely they will rather improve life for the normal people rather than their rich friends.

[–] xenomor@lemmy.world 21 points 17 hours ago (4 children)

I don’t really know anything about this situation. Should I just assume that the CIA is CIAing?

[–] buran@lemmy.today 11 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Colombian here, people actually do support this Bukele/Trump/Milei wannabe.

Half of us are morons.

[–] ArgumentativeMonotheist@lemmy.world 6 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Organically or with years of American propaganda though? Nothing is a vacuum although yeah people are naturally dumb as well. 😭

[–] buran@lemmy.today 4 points 3 hours ago

It's hard to say; this guy is way more extreme than the other right-wing presidents we ever had before.

[–] StillAlive@piefed.world 45 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Why? People can't be morons without psyops?

[–] phutatorius@lemmy.zip 19 points 16 hours ago

Lots of psyops besides the ones the CIA does.

[–] ivan@piefed.social 18 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

You're putting too much faith in an intelligence agency with most embarrassing history (and I must specify that whole of it is embarrassing) under most embarrassing (up to date) management of United States.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 6 points 16 hours ago

columbia has always had a far right situation for decades, likely influenced by the CIA in the past.