Caracas, Venezuela — Colombia is preparing to choose President Gustavo Petro’s successor on Sunday in an election that will generate significant regional interest, especially in next-door Venezuela.
Relations between sister countries Colombia and Venezuela, strained for years under former President Nicolás Maduro, are key to everything from politics, immigration, the economy, security and the fight against drug trafficking.
Interim President Delcy Rodriguez will no doubt be keeping an eye on which candidate succeeds, as the presidential candidates differ greatly in how they say they will interact with the Venezuelan government.
Two of the three leading candidates, Paloma Valencia of the Democratic Center and Abelardo de la Espriella of Defenders of the Fatherland, have signaled they will follow Washington’s lead in Venezuela.
This election is also expected to be the most polarizing in recent memory.
“Of all the societies I have studied, Colombia is probably the one with the most extreme positions: people who identify more strongly with the right or more strongly with the left.” Carmen Beatriz Fernández, political consultant and professor of mass communication, political systems and electoral campaigns, said: Latin America Report.
According to a poll ranking by Colombian media outlet La Silla Vacia, Cepeda was ahead by 8 percentage points, followed by de la Espriella and Valencia. If today’s election was held in a runoff between Cepeda and de la Espriella, the hard-right de la Espriella would win, according to pollster AtlasIntel.
“Cepeda is, in theory, the candidate with the strongest ties to Chavismo, but it is also true that de la Espriella has never denied a close relationship with Alex Saab, right? So this might be where the extremes can meet,” Fernández said.
De la Espriella, a trade lawyer, represented Maduro on money laundering charges and is also known for receiving money from Saab front companies, according to an investigation by journalist Daniel Coronell.
Venezuelan political columnist and international affairs expert Beatriz de Majo said: Latin America Report“I have my doubts about de la Espriella, because he could be a big surprise for us. He’s a guy who doesn’t seem completely out of the ordinary in every aspect of his behavior, and God only knows what kind of surprises he has in store for us now. But it feels like the fight will undoubtedly be decided between Cepeda and de la Espriella.”
De Majo said it was difficult to gauge where Colombia was headed after four years of Petro’s rule.
“Colombia’s electoral process is particularly interesting because the country’s compass was off during the four years of Petro’s rule. You couldn’t really know from the outside where the country was heading,” she said. According to De Majo, Petro’s only definitive project, his “complete peace” plan, “had no chance of ever being achieved.”
If his political successor, Cepeda, wins, we could see capital flowing from Colombia to Venezuela and elsewhere, de Mazo said.
“Capitalism in Colombia is deeply entrenched. Colombia is an incredibly industrial country. If Cepeda wins, it is very likely that there will be a large-scale capital movement from Colombia to Venezuela,” she said.
Colombia’s wealthy threatened to move their money abroad when Petro was first elected, but Spanish newspapers nation We recently reported on a company set up to help Colombians move their assets if Cepeda wins, and said Panama, Spain, Costa Rica and the United States are the most popular countries to relocate Colombians to. Venezuela is not included in the list.
De Mazo, on the other hand, believes that if de la Espriella is elected, he will mostly follow the United States’ lead and not prioritize relations with Venezuela.
“If de la Espriella wins, he has said several times that he will cooperate with the United States, and that has been the trend in Colombia in recent decades. Colombia has been under the control and protection of the U.S. military, and up until the Petro administration, everything related to drug control was going very well,” she said.
Since September 2025, the United States has killed about 200 suspected drug traffickers, including Colombians, by bombing boats in the eastern Pacific and Caribbean. The Trump administration sanctioned Petro in March on charges of allowing “drug cartels to thrive.” new york times Prosecutors reported they were investigating Petro, and the administration later assured him he was not currently facing charges.
What about Venezuelan immigrants?
More than 2.8 million Venezuelans live in Colombia, according to data from the Colombian Immigration Service, and the country is the largest host country for Venezuelan refugees fleeing poor economic conditions.
Despite the severity of the problem, de Majo doesn’t think the election results will have any impact on immigrants. Migrants are more likely to be watching what happens in Venezuela to see if they can return home.
“The situation of Venezuelans in Colombia will depend not on what Colombia does to help them, but rather on what happens in Venezuela, because if democratic processes and freedoms are truly restored in Venezuela and the economy takes off again, the first Venezuelans to return to Colombia will not be Europeans or Americans, but Colombians,” she said.
Featured Image: Colombian President Gustavo Petro meets with Venezuelan Interim President Delcy Rodriguez on April 24, 2026.
Image credit: Gustavo Petro via X.
