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Right-wing lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella has been sworn in as Colombia’s president after winning a run-off election on promises to crack down on armed groups, cut government spending by as much as 40 percent, and revive the South American country’s oil and gas industry.
De la Espriella, 48, took the oath of office on Friday, breaking with tradition by holding the ceremony not in the capital, Bogota, but in Cali, a city in Colombia’s volatile southwest that has long borne the brunt of the government’s conflict with armed groups.
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The choice signalled a decisive break from the strategy of negotiated peace with those groups pursued by outgoing leftist leader Gustavo Petro, whom de la Espriella defeated in June’s run-off. De La Espriella has dismissed Petro’s policy as a failure.
“There will be no room for manoeuvres that undermine the stability of the nation,” de la Espriella said on Friday, as he pledged to “relentlessly defeat narco-terrorism”.
He added that “the option of dialogue is completely exhausted”.
Speaking to Colombian business owners, de la Espriella vowed his government “will be your partner in investing in Colombia”.
He called for “the development of responsible and sustainable fracking”.
“We cannot resign ourselves to having proven oil reserves that will last only a few more years, nor can we accept the decline of our gas reserves,” he said, adding his government will work to strengthen state-run oil company Ecopetrol.
‘El Tigre’
A political newcomer known to supporters as “El Tigre”, The Tiger, de la Espriella built his fortune and public profile as a lawyer and businessman rather than through elected office, largely self-financing his campaign as an outsider candidate.
His arrival in power marks a sharp ideological reversal for a country that, for the past four years, was led by a former rebel fighter who was frequently critical of the drug and immigration policies of United States President Donald Trump.
De la Espriella has, in contrast, hewed closer to Trump and his militaristic approach to drug crime in Latin America.
Security dominated Friday’s ceremony, which was held at a university auditorium before Congress. Soldiers and armoured vehicles lined roads near the venue, and police manned checkpoints, screening vehicles for explosives in the preceding days.
After the ceremony, de la Espriella travelled to a nearby military battalion to address troops directly, framing the visit as both a morale boost for the armed forces and a signal of the approach he plans to take.
Colombia’s southwest remains contested territory for dissident factions of the demobilised FARC rebel movement, which rejected the peace deal the group signed a decade ago with the government. The Clan del Golfo drug cartel and the National Liberation Army (ELN) rebel group are also active in the area.
The new president has also pledged to join the so-called “Shield of the Americas”, a US-backed regional coalition against drug trafficking that grew out of a summit hosted by the Trump administration in March. He has promised to restore diplomatic relations with Israel and sever ties with Cuba and Nicaragua, branding them as “tyrannies”.
Petro had initially refused to accept the election result, alleging that vote tallies had been manipulated. The claim was dismissed by international observers and Colombia’s electoral authorities. Petro ultimately conceded that he would respect the outcome.
Still, protests broke out in Cali, Bogota and Barranquilla on inauguration day.
In Cali’s Puerto Resistencia neighbourhood, once the epicentre of mass antigovernment demonstrations in 2021, 25-year-old protester Sebastian Ocampo said residents were “defending dignity” against a president he said had not won their support.
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Jorge Restrepo, a professor of economics at Javeriana University in Bogota, said the close election margins underscore the challenges ahead in leading an ideologically divided country.
“His discourse today, his speech, actually shows a lack of detail, a lot of intentions, a lot of political principles that distance himself from the previous left-wing progressive government of Gustavo Petro,” he said.
“But the lack of detail shows that it will be very difficult for him to make reality what he has promised to Colombia, which is…a ‘miracle nation,'” he said.
US pledges aid plan
De la Espriella’s win extends a run of electoral victories by conservatives across Latin America, with seven right-wing leaders elected since Trump returned to the White House in January 2025. That includes Peru’s Keiko Fujimori, Chile’s Jose Antonio Kast, and Argentina’s Javier Milei.
Trump personally endorsed de la Espriella’s campaign.
Guests at Universidad Santiago de Cali watch Colombia’s new president, Abelardo de la Espriella, deliver a speech from the Pichincha Battalion on a giant screen during his inauguration ceremony in Cali [AFP/Luis Acosta]The US State Department on Friday said the Trump administration plans to provide $1bn in security assistance to de la Espriella, pending approval from the US Congress.
“As a cornerstone of this renewed partnership, the United States, working with Congress, intends to announce $1 billion in assistance as part of a security package to support President de la Espriella’s Administration in achieving our shared goals,” the State Department said in a statement.
Leaders in attendance at Friday’s event included Spain’s King Felipe VI, acting US Attorney General Todd Blanche, FIFA president Gianni Infantino, and several Latin American conservative leaders, including Milei and Kast.
