Abelardo de la Espriella is the favorite to face Iván Cepeda in a runoff in Colombia. And Ecuador returns to international bond markets after painful subsidy cuts.
Ignacio Portes & Jorge C. Carrasco
COLOMBIA
De la Espriella surges in polls ahead of Sunday’s election
The outcome of Colombia’s presidential vote this weekend is not settled, but polls and prediction markets do agree on some things ahead of the May 31 election.
First of all, each one of the country’s major polling firms believe that left-winger Iván Cepeda will at least make the runoff. He is backed by President Gustavo Petro, whose popularity recovered from a low of 30% one year ago to 40% or more in the latest measurements.
Who Cepeda would face in a potential second round seemed like a toss-up between mainstream conservative Paloma Valencia and right-wing outsider Abelardo de la Espriella, but the last few weeks have shown a surge for De la Espriella among the most credible pollsters, making him the likeliest to dispute a presidential runoff on June 21.
Invamer put De la Espriella at 21.5% of the vote in April, while Valencia stood at 19.8% — a statistical tie for second place. By late May, De la Espriella had jumped to 31.6%, while Valencia fell to 14% — a 16-point swing in less than a month.
While a few less-known pollsters still had Valencia ahead of De la Espriella, prediction markets were seemingly not buying it, giving the establishment conservative a mere 5% chance of winning the race before the start of the polling blackout on May 25. Valencia’s odds continued to drop after that cutoff, reaching 2% at present, which suggests that unpublished surveys from a later date paint an even bleaker picture for her.
👉 Why it matters. A De la Espriella win would not only consolidate the region’s recent rightward shift, his newcomer status would also add an element of unpredictability — similar to Javier Milei in Argentina.
Cepeda’s win, on the other hand, would challenge notions about Trump’s strength in the region and show that a confrontational left-wing approach like Petro’s can still be electorally effective.
De la Espriella has answered questions about lacking a political machine of local leaders who can deliver him votes on election day by securing key endorsements from the Creemos movement in Antioquia and the powerful Char family network in Barranquilla, which have typically leaned right but could have run with Valencia.
The government’s nominee also received some last-minute reinforcements from the broader political left, as candidate Carlos Caicedo withdrew last week to announce his backing for Cepeda, following in the footsteps of Petro’s former foreign minister, Luis Gilberto Murillo, on May 6.
Colombia has been Washington’s closest security partner in the region for decades, but its alliance has been challenged due to President Petro’s clashes with the Trump administration, which will be following developments closely.
Republican senator Bernie Moreno, a Trump ally of Colombian descent, has called on the Colombian opposition to unite behind a single candidacy, a sign that the US government is not too bothered about who wins, as long as it’s not Cepeda.
ECONOMY
Ecuador returns to bond markets after tough fuel subsidy cuts
When Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa raised diesel prices in September 2025, protests broke out immediately across the country, leaving four demonstrators dead after weeks of violent clashes.
Noboa had raised prices from USD 0.48 per liter (equivalent to USD 1.80 per gallon) to 0.74 per liter, a 55% hike. This was particularly hard on remote indigenous communities and informal workers who rely on cheap fuel for transport, but Noboa thought it was worth it to balance the country’s budget.
A year later, Noboa feels he is reaping the benefits of those tough measures, which allowed Ecuador to save hundreds of millions, turning investors optimistic about the country’s ability to repay its debts.
👉 Why it matters. As a result, Ecuadorian bonds reached their highest level in 12 years, while country risk premiums fell to their lowest level over the same period, at 400 basis points. This opened the door for Ecuador’s return to international debt markets in 2026, refinancing debt maturities a few years down the road.
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The first issuance came in January, when the country auctioned two new bond series set for 2034 and 2039, raising USD 4 billion in total. The money was used to repurchase bonds that expired in 2030 and 2035.
The country returned to markets this month, raising an additional USD 1 billion. While the January issuance came with a steep 9% annual interest rate, the May auction was somewhat better, at 8.5%.
Ecuador had not been able to raise new cash since 2019, with the sole exception of a rare debt-for-nature swap in 2024. In a context of rising global rates, Noboa will be able to chalk this up as a win for his struggling administration, which has not been able to deliver results on cartel violence, the most sensitive topic for local voters.
Even then, the government is still not out of the woods economically, as the US-Israel war on Iran took international oil prices significantly higher than they were in 2025. Looking to avoid a new round of protests, Noboa opted against steep new hikes in local diesel prices this year, capping them at 5% per month, but this will add more fiscal costs to his administration if international prices don’t revert to the mean.
Ecuador’s economy is expected to grow by 2.5% this year, the Central Bank forecast last month, revising its prediction upward from 1.8% in its previous report. While growth in 2025 was higher at 3.7%, much of that was attributable to the end of the drought the country experienced in 2024.
QUESTION OF THE WEEK
Colombia’s Gustavo Petro is sometimes referred to as the first openly left-wing president in the country’s history, but that is inaccurate. Who was the last head of state from the left-wing faction of Colombia’s Liberal Party in the 1990s?
- CĂ©sar Gaviria
- Ernesto Samper
- Andrés Pastrana
- Juan Manuel Santos
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