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On Sunday, voters within the South American nation of Colombia are dealing with a selection.

4 years in the past, they elected the primary left-wing president within the nation’s fashionable historical past, Gustavo Petro. Now, they have to resolve whether or not to proceed with Petro’s leftist push — or restore the political proper to energy.

Fourteen candidates will likely be on the poll for the primary spherical of voting in Colombia’s presidential election.  The packed discipline consists of contenders from the left, proper and centre, who’re slated to face off over points like safety and the price of residing.

However Petro won’t be amongst them: Presidents in Colombia are restricted to a single four-year time period.

The appropriate wing is predicted to have the benefit, notably if the race proceeds to a second spherical. Petro is fighting low ballot numbers, and voters have expressed frustration with crime and violence, pushed partly by the nation’s six-decade-long inside battle.

However leftist candidate Ivan Cepeda has stunned observers, persistently inserting on the high of the polls forward of the primary spherical.

When is the election, who’re the candidates, and which points are high of thoughts for voters? We have a look at these questions and extra on this temporary explainer.

When is the election?

The primary spherical of voting is ready to happen on Might 31, 2026.

Will there be a second spherical of voting?

A candidate would want to win greater than 50 p.c of the vote within the first spherical to keep away from a run-off.

If no single candidate meets that threshold, a run-off will likely be held between the highest two finishers on June 21.

Why is that this election necessary?

In recent times, throughout Latin America, long-entrenched left-wing governments have met defeat on the poll field.

Final 12 months alone, right-wing candidates have been elected to switch left-wing presidents in Bolivia, Chile and Honduras.

However Colombia doesn’t have a protracted historical past of left-wing presidents. Petro was the primary. That makes this race one to look at, based on Gimena Sanchez, a Colombia skilled on the Washington Workplace on Latin America (WOLA), a human rights nonprofit.

“That is the primary election to be held after the first-ever leftist administration in Colombia’s 200-year historical past,” Sanchez defined.

Colombia now stands at a fork within the street. One of many dominant points within the election is the right way to resolve the nation’s inside battle, which pressured greater than 235,619 people from their houses in 2025.

One other 87,069 folks had been caught up in mass displacement occasions because of the preventing, based on the Worldwide Committee of the Purple Cross.

Petro has embraced negotiation as a device to finish the battle, which has seen authorities forces, legal networks, left-wing rebels and right-wing paramilitaries all battling each other.

However the political proper has advocated a return to the extra militarised method backed by the USA, based on Sanchez.

“The main candidates fall into two camps: continuity with the leftist authorities of Petro and an method to safety that focuses on negotiations with armed teams, and right-wing candidates who very a lot wish to return to a hardline safety mannequin that Colombia had prior to now,” Sanchez stated.

“You have got polar reverse visions for the nation.”

Who’s the principle candidate on the left?

Senator Ivan Cepeda has emerged as the first candidate of the political left, working as the top of the governing coalition, referred to as Historic Pact.

Cepeda has largely pledged continuity with Petro’s platform, together with social and financial insurance policies meant to cut back inequality.

He has additionally embraced Petro’s “Complete Peace” method, which goals to resolve the nation’s inside preventing by negotiating with armed teams and legal networks, versus solely counting on navy drive.

Confronting state-backed violence has develop into a trademark of Cepeda’s life and profession.

His father, who was additionally a senator, is believed to have been assassinated by a government-backed paramilitary. For years, Cepeda was additionally embroiled in a authorized battle for accusing former President Alvaro Uribe of connections to right-wing paramilitaries.

Who’re the principle candidates on the suitable?

Whereas Cepeda has develop into the standard-bearer for the left, the political proper has needed to take care of a extra fractured discipline of candidates.

Operating on the far proper is Abelardo de la Espriella, a lawyer for the Defenders of the Homeland Get together who has generated comparisons with Salvadoran President Salvador Bukele and Argentina’s Javier Milei.

Like these leaders, de la Espriella has supplied a hardline imaginative and prescient for his nation’s safety. If elected, he says he would finish negotiations with armed teams, bomb insurgent camps, and resume the aerial fumigation of coca ⁠crops, which produce the uncooked materials for cocaine.

Senator Paloma Valencia, a candidate with the Democratic Centre Get together, is working as a extra reasonable various to de la Espriella. She too has promised a stricter method to crime. Her platform entails increasing the police and armed forces, whereas slicing taxes and selling pro-business insurance policies within the financial realm.

Their election-season competitors has develop into a supply of acrimony for Valencia and de la Espriella, who’ve accused one another of paving the best way for a leftist election victory.

“There’s a extra acquainted, institution proper, represented by Valencia, and a far proper within the type of de la Espriella, who pitches himself as an outsider,” stated Sanchez.

Valencia, for her half, has criticised de la Espriella as two-faced, defending criminals in his authorized observe however advocating for tighter safety on the marketing campaign path.

De la Espriella, in the meantime, has dismissed Valencia as a member of the nation’s political institution and chided her in a social media publish, stating that the presidential election is “not for little video games”.

What are the polls saying?

Polls typically present Cepeda forward of his rivals, with de la Espriella in second place and Valencia in third.

A Might 24 ballot from the Nationwide Consulting Centre (CNC) and the publication Cambio steered that Cepeda had drawn 33.4 p.c of voter assist, probably the most of any candidate.

However de la Espriella was on the upswing with 30.9 p.c. Valencia, in the meantime, trailed with 12.6 p.c.

The identical surveys, nevertheless, recommend that Cepeda would wrestle to win a run-off towards both of the 2 right-wing candidates, with de la Espriella eking out about three factors in a head-to-head contest, and Valencia coming inside a proportion level of victory.

Undecided voters may play a key function in deciding the end result, although. An evaluation cited by the Spanish paper El Pais estimates that undecided voters may account for as a lot as 28 p.c of the citizens.

Which points are entrance and centre?

Issues over crime, safety and financial points like unemployment and affordability have dominated the election.

In a ballot from the agency Invamer, the best proportion of voters — 37 p.c — recognized safety as the highest situation dealing with the nation.

Fundamental wants and unemployment ranked second and third, with 17 p.c and 16 p.c, respectively. Eleven p.c of voters, in the meantime, named corruption as a number one concern.

The specter of violence has lingered over the presidential marketing campaign over the previous 12 months.

Two political staffers with de la Espriella’s marketing campaign had been killed by gunmen on motorbikes earlier this month. And in June 2025, presidential candidate Miguel Uribe Turbay was shot whereas leaving a marketing campaign rally. The 39-year-old died two months later from his accidents.

Political violence is a severe concern in Colombia, and all the frontrunners within the race journey with heavy safety.