With his rival now conceding defeat in Sunday’s presidential run-off, Colombia’s Abelardo de la Espriella has become the latest rightwing populist to sweep to power in Latin America. Modelling himself on both El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele and Argentina’s Javier Milei, de la Espriella has promised to build a series of mega-prisons to house drug traffickers and to cut the size of the Colombian state by 40 per cent.
His victory extends a series of successes for rightwing candidates in the region, from Chile to Honduras to Bolivia in recent months, many of them running on Donald Trump-like themes. Indeed, of the past 15 presidential elections in Latin America, candidates of the right or centre-right have won 12.
Many of these rightwing candidates have been helped by strong structural forces. Electorates across the region are irate at the seemingly unchallenged growth of organised crime groups. In some countries, the rise of evangelical churches has dovetailed with greater social conservatism. The three most radical leftwing governments in the region — Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua — have, meanwhile, been such abject failures that they have tarnished the image of many of the more moderate leftwing governments.