Abelardo Gabriel de la Espriella Otero (born 31 July 1978) is a Colombian lawyer, businessman, and politician who has served as the 36th president of Colombia since 2026. He is the founder and leader of the far-right Defenders of the Homeland party, established initially as a movement in 2024.
Born in Bogotá and raised in Montería, Córdoba, de la Espriella studied law at Sergio Arboleda University, received his degree from Del Rosario University, and obtained a master's degree in law from Nebrija University in 2012. He became a prominent public figure through his defense of high-profile clients, including politicians accused of ties to right-wing paramilitary groups and Alex Saab, a Venezuelan businessman later indicted in the United States on money laundering charges. In 2005, he founded the Foundation for Peace Initiatives (FIPAZ), which promoted a referendum to prohibit extradition in Colombia and organized forums featuring commanders of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC).
In the 2026 Colombian presidential election, de la Espriella received 43.74% of the vote in the first round on 31 May, before defeating left-wing senator Iván Cepeda in the runoff on 21 June with 49.66% to Cepeda's 48.70%—the smallest margin of victory ever recorded in a Colombian presidential election. With 12.9 million votes, he became the presidential candidate with the most votes in the country's history.
De la Espriella supports the right to bear arms, withdrawal from international bodies such as the United Nations and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, laissez-faire economic policies, and an end to peace processes with Colombian armed groups. In foreign policy, he has overseen closer alignment with the United States under President Donald Trump and the restoration of diplomatic ties with Israel.
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Early life, family and career
His father, a lawyer by profession, served as a magistrate at the Administrative Tribunal of Córdoba. His mother, María Eugenia Otero Aldana, comes from a family of cattle ranchers with ties to local politics.
During his early years, de la Espriella associated with Salvatore Mancuso. Mancuso is ten years older, and they studied at the same high school and moved within the same social circles—the city's upper class. He also performed in his high school's theater group and later worked for a popular local radio station, La Voz de Montería. He has retained a passion for hunting and firearms.
In a 2014 TV show, de la Espriella stated that as a child he enjoyed tying firecrackers to cats and watching them explode, stating that doing this to cats was "awful" but that he "enjoyed it". He later stated that the anecdote regarding cats and firecrackers was not real, and was a joke he made as he was annoyed by the TV show's remarks towards him. In the same statement, he said he regretted that "joke" and described himself as "an animal lover".
He was a candidate for governor of Córdoba during the 1997 Colombian regional and municipal elections. He is also a close friend of Álvaro Uribe, who was president of Colombia from 2002 to 2010.
After graduating, he moved to Bogotá, D.C., to study law at Sergio Arboleda University, an institution with a conservative orientation. He received his degree from Del Rosario University. In 2012 he obtained a master's degree in law from Nebrija University.
De la Espriella worked at the Initiatives for Peace Foundation (FIPAZ), an organization that sought to promote a referendum to recognize the political rights of all armed actors during the Colombian conflict and to amend the Constitution to prohibit the extradition of Colombians, serving as an advisor to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia. De la Espriella is a millionaire. Before his presidential run, he traveled using private planes and promoted his rum and wine businesses. After living in Miami for over a decade, he received United States citizenship in 2023.
High-profile legal representations
De la Espriella defended political figures accused of having allied themselves with paramilitaries, some of whom had been close to him since childhood, such as the former congresswoman Eleonora Pineda—who was a friend of his mother—as well as Dieb Maloof and Rocío Arias. In 2008, de la Espriella publicly supported Salvatore Mancuso, a former drug trafficker and former United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia commander. De la Espriella publicly stated: "He took on a struggle that all of us from Córdoba should have fought. If I were in his place, I would have done the same." In 2012, de la Espriella represented Dania Londoño Suárez, a Colombian woman linked to the prostitution scandal in Cartagena during the Summit of the Americas and involving members of the United States Secret Service. According to an Associated Press report, he confirmed that his client had reached a pre-agreement with Playboy magazine and negotiated an interview with the American television network ABC. He stated that as a result of those agreements, she would not grant interviews to other news outlets, and declined to disclose the financial terms involved.
From 2013 to 2019, de la Espriella served as legal counsel to Alex Saab, who was later indicted in the United States on charges including money laundering and alleged operation as a financial agent for the Venezuelan government of Nicolás Maduro. Saab publicly described de la Espriella as a close associate and legal advisor. In May 2014, Venezuelan political strategist Juan José Rendón was reported to be scheduled to give a statement at the Colombian Consulate in Miami in connection with an investigation. According to La Prensa, he was to be accompanied by attorney Abelardo de la Espriella. In 2015, de la Espriella served as the attorney for Pastor Álvaro Gámez of Pasto following sexual abuse trials. Seven women filed public complaints questioning de la Espriella's involvement in defending sexual predators, alleging that he had discredited their testimonies and evidence in court.
In 2018, de la Espriella served as attorney for former President Andrés Pastrana Arango after a congressman from the Alternative Democratic Pole accused the former President of having ties with the pedophile ring run by Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. De la Espriella stated that "he must post a video on social media setting forth the terms of the settlement and retracting the defamatory and slanderous statements against President Pastrana. Justice has been served." In late 2023, de la Espriella suggested nominating Pastrana as his head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in his potential cabinet during the start of his presidential campaign. Following the release of part of the Epstein Files in early 2026, it was discovered that Pastrana had appeared more than 50 times on DOJ documents, in addition several photographs showing Pastrana and Maxwell on plane rides were disclosed to the public.
FIPAZ Foundation and ties to the AUC
In 2005, de la Espriella founded the Foundation for Peace Initiatives (FIPAZ). This foundation organized university forums in which Iván Roberto Duque, alias "Ernesto Báez," former commander of the Central Bolívar Bloc of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), took part, and at which Salvatore Mancuso was present and photographed alongside de la Espriella. FIPAZ also promoted a referendum to prohibit extradition in Colombia.
In 2008, Báez stated that "the armed organization sought out students, through Abelardo de la Espriella, as a dissemination channel to justify the war undertaken by the paramilitary organization." In a 2011 ruling against former congressman Juan Pablo Sánchez, the Supreme Court of Justice held that FIPAZ "did not promote peace when the self-defense groups were massacring, disappearing, killing, and torturing, but rather when they sought to project themselves politically through university students," and ordered to launch an investigation into de la Espriella. However, the Office of the Attorney General, under the leadership of Mario Iguarán, who, according to Mancuso, was a close friend of de la Espriella, had already closed the investigation against him for criminal conspiracy and money laundering in 2009.
2026 presidential election
In the run-up to the May–June 2026 presidential election, the political website La Silla Vacía noted that "everything in his campaign revolves around the idea of the 'alpha male' as an unquestionable sign of his ability to govern", in order to set himself apart from the conservative candidate, Paloma Valencia.
His rallies have featured figures from across the political right in Latin America, including military veteran leaders and evangelical preachers. Ecuadorian president Daniel Noboa endorsed his presidential campaign, saying that if de la Espriella were elected, the Ecuadorian government would eliminate tariffs on Colombian products. In addition, de la Espriella also received public endorsements from Chilean president José Antonio Kast and Argentine president Javier Milei following his victory in the first round. In mid-June 2026, the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected statements made by Milei in support of de la Espriella's candidacy, citing them as political interference and a violation of the Charter of the Organization of American States. Peruvian presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori of Popular Force also congratulated de la Espriella on her election victory, noting that she was grateful for the support de la Espriella had provided earlier in her campaign to win the 2026 Peruvian elections. Fujimori also highlighted the improvement in diplomatic relations between Colombia and Peru under her potential administration.
U.S. President Donald Trump endorsed de la Espriella, accusing his opponent Iván Cepeda of being a "radical left-wing Marxist" in a series of Truth Social posts and noting that de la Espriella could improve relations between Colombia and the United States, which were subject to several diplomatic confrontations between Trump and outgoing president Gustavo Petro. Nate Morris, President Trump's nominee to be Ambassador to Colombia, commented that he looked forward to working with de la Espriella to advance Trump’s agenda in Colombia.
According to The Economist's editor-in-chief Zanny Minton Beddoes, along with a panel of journalists, voters are fed up with systemic crime, leading them to seek candidates they believe can solve it, which explains how the country can go from both ends of the political spectrum. Into the early 2020s, there was a "pink tide", but that by the mid-2020s there was a "conservative wave" and citizens demand crackdowns on violent crime. The panel of journalists concluded that the incoming president was the "Trumpiest of the lot".
Presidency (2026–present)
De la Espriella took the oath of office on 7 August 2026 during his inauguration in Cali. In attendance were Argentinian president Javier Milei, Chilean president José Antonio Kast, Ecuadorian president Daniel Noboa, Spanish king Felipe VI, as well as acting American attorney general Todd Blanche and FIFA head Gianni Infantino. His 18 cabinet members were inaugurated during a ceremony at the Pichincha Battalion military base in Cali. Prior to his inauguration, de la Espriella announced that he would move the presidential office to the San Carlos Palace and turn the Casa de Nariño into a museum, but reversed course the following month after he had taken office, with authorities citing security concerns.
On 10 August, de la Espriella announced that the Colombian military killed six alleged members of illegal armed groups, in the first major events in a large-scale security operation he ordered when he took office. Four of those killed were said to have been FARC dissidents and included the commander of Front 28, while two others were part of the Clan del Golfo drug cartel.
That same day, the 2026 Colombia earthquake occurred, prompting him to declare a state of emergency on 10 August and an economic emergency on 12 August.
On 8 September 2026, de la Espriella signed a decree lifting the nationwide suspension of permits to carry firearms that had been in place since 2015.
Cabinet
Vice President: José Manuel Restrepo
Minister of the Interior: Rodrigo Lara Restrepo
Minister of Foreign Affairs: Omar Bula
Minister of Finance and Public Credit: Miguel Gómez Martínez
Minister of Justice and Law: Iván Cancino
Minister of Defence: Jorge Mora López
Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development: Indalecio Dangond
Minister of Mines and Energy: María Nohemí Arboleda
Minister of Commerce, Industry and Tourism: Mauricio Gómez Amín
Minister of National Education: Viviane Morales
Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development: Fabio Arjona
Minister of Housing, City and Territory: Jaime Andrés Beltrán
Minister of Information Technologies and Communications: Alexandra Falla Zerrate
Minister of Transport: Elsa Noguera
Minister of Culture: Paola Holguín
Minister of Sports: Juliana Gutiérrez
Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation: Claudia Benavides Salazar
Minister of Health and Social Protection: Ana María Vesga
Political views
De la Espriella has been widely described as right-wing or far-right. He supports the right to bear arms, withdrawing Colombia from international organizations such as the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the United Nations. He has said he would authorize the police to shoot at protesters they deem to be violent. He has also threatened to kill suspects of drug trafficking by downing planes and shooting boats, which has been "widely denounced as a form of extrajudicial killing, effectively denying suspects the chance of defending themselves in a court of law".
De la Espriella also supports implementing a security system similar to the one put in place by Nayib Bukele in El Salvador, citing as an example the creation of 10 mega-prisons across the country. He also clarified that he wants to eliminate the National Penitentiary and Prison Institute (INPEC), the government agency that regulates prison conditions based on various policies aimed at ensuring the safety, custody, and eventual rehabilitation of inmates. De La Esprilla described the current INPEC's operations as a "den of bandits". He clarified that the new megaprisons would be administered by private entities with their own regulatory systems, independent of the Ministry of Justice or other oversight bodies.
In February 2025, de la Espriella met with right-wing Congressman Miguel Abraham Polo Polo to discuss security issues in his potential administration as part of his podcast Tertulias Defensor. De la Espriella clarified: "If I’d been a paramilitary, I would've picked up a rifle and put on a uniform because I've got the guts to do what needs to be done. I wouldn't have been like Petro, who was just a coffee-shop guerrilla fighter; I would've been a real, real paramilitary. I'm not cut out for half-measures, you take away the rhetoric from this mangy plague of leftists."
De la Espriella said he wants to restore diplomatic ties with Israel, which had been severed by the Colombian government in protest against the Gaza war. He further announced that he would open an embassy in Jerusalem, thereby breaking with Colombia's traditional position on the conflict. In late 2025, he met with Israeli foreign minister Gideon Sa'ar, to whom he promised to "strengthen the bonds of friendship and cooperation" between Colombia and Israel. De la Espriella has also expressed staunch support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In an August 2025 interview, when questioned about the military offensive in Gaza, he stated that "the State of Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu, is doing what they have to do to defend their people", adding that he would take similar measures to defend Colombia against terrorism, stating he would not "kneel before terrorism." These statements drew severe backlash from opposition figures and human rights commentators, who condemned his rhetoric as an explicit justification of the mass casualties and destruction in the Gaza Strip. Following his victory in the June 2026 presidential election, Netanyahu publicly congratulated de la Espriella on social media, stating that "friends of Israel keep winning." In August 2026, Colombia officially recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, becoming the second UN member country to do so following the United States, which did so in 2019 during the first Trump administration.
Personal life
De la Espriella was an atheist for a number of years, but converted to Catholicism and "raises the conservative banners of several supporting Christian churches". He is married to Ana Lucía Pineda, with whom he has four children.