Colombia’s newest standard-bearer for the hard right, Abelardo de la Espriella, has pledged to wage a “crusade for the soul of the homeland” against the “communists” in government and the drug mafias and guerrillas terrorising the country.
“I will take an iron fist to crime in all its forms,” says de la Espriella, a brash 47-year-old former criminal defence lawyer, in an interview at his office on Colombia’s Caribbean coast. “Peace can only be achieved through the force of the gun and the law.”
On the campaign trail, de la Espriella has invoked God in a “moral and spiritual” battle to save his Andean nation from the “evil” of the left. He borrows from other hard-right leaders in Latin America in more than just his message; his choice of a tiger as a symbol evokes Argentine President Javier Milei’s trademark lion, while his neatly trimmed black beard, moustache and sideburns channel El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele.