Days before the presidential elections, Colombia It is torn between two extremes that leave a worrying void in the center. On the one hand, Iván Cepeda, candidate of the Historical Pact, considered by several analysts to be more dogmatic than Petro himself. On the other, Abelardo de la Espriella, a millionaire criminal lawyer, with no political experience, who appears in a bulletproof vest, travels behind armored glass and openly proclaims his admiration for Trump, Bukele and Milei.
Cepeda promises to deepen the reforms of the current government: continue the so-called “total peace”, accelerate agrarian reform and complete the energy transition. His program has a significant name: three revolutions, ethical, economic and political. It represents a left that continues to see the State as the main instrument of social transformation.
De la Espriella, in the other corner, proposes building ten megaprisons, reducing the State by 40%, suspending all dialogue with armed groups and strengthening a strategic alliance with the United States and Israel. He lives part of the year in Florence, boasts a mansion in Miami and a villa in Tuscany. He proclaims himself “The Tiger.” His political career began less than two years ago.
No democracy prospers when the options end up reduced to choosing between increasingly ideological projects or bets built around the personality of a candidate. Without strong institutions, economic growth, and stable rules, countries often find that the extremes promise far more than they can deliver.
The phenomenon has a name: pendulum. And it is not exclusively Colombian. It is the Latin American version of a trend that runs through much of the West. The discredit of traditional politics has hollowed out the center and pushed voters towards the extremes. Being a professional politician is no longer a credential. For many it has become a defect.
The paradox is that this rejection does not come from nowhere. The traditional political class is also responsible for much of the mistrust it faces today. Decades of corruption, clientelism, unfulfilled promises and disconnection from citizen concerns eroded the legitimacy of the parties and fueled the search for disruptive alternatives.
But it is one thing to question the political class and quite another to forget the role it played in the construction of Colombian democracy. It is worth remembering what that same despised policy cost Colombia.
Between 1987 and 1995, five presidential candidates were assassinated: Jaime Pardo Leal, Luis Carlos Galán, Bernardo Jaramillo Ossa, Carlos Pizarro and Álvaro Gómez Hurtado. Three of them fell in just eight months. They were profoundly different men, united by a common circumstance: they decided to engage in politics in one of the most violent moments in Colombian history.
To that generation, with all its limitations, he owes Colombia the Constitution of 1991, the decentralization of the State, economic opening and much of the institutional advances that have allowed democracy to be preserved in the midst of enormous challenges. They were imperfect reforms, debatable in some aspects, but built within the democratic framework.
The problem with the outsider model is not ideological. It is institutional. Bukele had been mayor. Milei went through Congress. Trump ran a complex business structure for decades. De la Espriella lacks any of those references. However, that absence is presented today as a merit.
Latin America knows this dynamic well. When trust in institutions disappears, the vote stops evaluating capabilities and begins to reward emotions. The most strident candidate displaces the most competent. The pendulum is transformed into electoral law. And institutions that took generations to build can deteriorate much faster than we imagine.
Therefore the real risk for Colombia It is not only in Cepeda nor only in De la Espriella. It’s in memory loss. It lies in forgetting how much it cost to build democratic institutions and how much sacrifice it required to replace violence with the ballot box.
Politics is imperfect because it is human. But countries that forget the price they paid for their democracy often end up paying a much higher price to recover it.
