President Donald Trump congratulated conservative attorney and businessman Abelardo de la Espriella on becoming president of Colombia Monday at the White House. Yet while he holds a slim lead and is the favorite to win over left-wing Senator Ivan Cepeda, authorities have yet to officially certify the result.

With 99.9% of votes counted, de la Espriella led with 49.7% to Cepeda’s 48.7%. De la Espriella, known to his supporters as “El Tigre,” dominated in the country’s mountainous interior and the vote-rich state of Antioquia, while Cepeda won in the capital Bogotá and performed well in coastal regions, following trends of recent presidential elections.

Cepeda has challenged the results, citing irregularities at thousands of polling stations. Nonetheless, overturning the election would be unprecedented in Colombian history.

If de la Espriella does hold out, it will mirror a continent-wide rightward shift seen in recent electoral results in Chile, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru, where conservative Keiko Fujimori appears poised to win the presidency.

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Donald Trump congratulated de la Espriella during a signing at the White House on Monday. Trump told reporters that, “He called me last night, and he thanked me for the endorsement. He won. He won the election.” In response to a question on relations between the U.S. and Colombia, Trump asserted that things would be “Much better. It’ll be better. He’s going to be a great president.”

The election featured two candidates representing polar opposites of the Colombian political spectrum. De la Espriella, known as ‘El Tigre’ by his supporters, has enjoyed the enthusiastic backing of Donald Trump, promised a return to the law-and-order approach of former President Alvaro Uribe, and pledged an aggressive military campaign against guerrilla groups and criminal organizations, while Cepeda vowed to continue the negotiation-based strategy of Petro, a longtime political ally.

Ivan Cepeda is a longtime figure on the Colombian left, and served as senator for 12 years, following a four-year stint in the Chamber of Representatives. His father, Manuel Cepeda, was a prominent figure in the Colombian Communist Party, and was assassinated in 1994 during a particularly bloody era in Colombia’s internal conflict.

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The first round of the election, held on May 31, saw de la Espriella win 43.7% of the vote, to Cepeda’s 40.9%, with right-wing Senator Paloma Valencia placing a distant third, at 6.9%.

On Sunday evening, Secretary of State Marco Rubio congratulated de la Espriella on the result, saying, “The Trump Administration looks forward to working closely with your incoming administration to advance regional security cooperation, end illegal immigration to the United States.”

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While the issues driving American and Colombian politics remain considerably distinct, de la Espriella’s insurgent outsider campaign emulated Trump’s in many ways, particularly in the sense that neither held elected nor appointed office prior to winning the presidency, launching successful campaigns almost entirely outside the existing party structure.

The defining safety and security issue set de la Espriella on a winning course, as he honed something of a strongman image to forcefully critique the Petro administration’s policy of peace through negotiation with armed groups in opposition to the Colombian government.

It is widely believed that Petro’s negotiation-based approach and restraint with respect to military action has allowed such groups as the ELN (National Liberation Army), and various dissident elements of the FARC to regroup, boost recruitment and regain control of key territory and drug trafficking routes.

De la Espriella promised a return to an aggressive military campaign to reclaim territory from terrorist groups and cartels, and pledged to build “mega-prisons”, citing the policies of El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele as a model for eradicating criminal groups.

A de la Espriella administration will also likely mark a return to free-market economics, decreased governmental intervention in the economy, and a renewed push to lower taxes.

A strengthened U.S.-Colombia relationship is also a certainty, following an era of considerable tensions between Petro and Trump, which led to a series of acrimonious social media exchanges. Historically, Colombia was the U.S.’ strongest ally in the region, but the relationship has weakened considerably under the tenure of Petro.

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Political analysts will also be closely watching the dynamic between Colombia and Venezuela.  De la Espriella is likely to follow the Trump administration’s lead in Bogotá’s approach to the new Delcy Rodriguez administration, demanding a timeline for free and fair elections, and calling on the Venezuelan government to aggressively pursue the ELN Marxist guerrilla group in border regions where it has long sought refuge, and had an allegedly close relationship with former dictator Nicolás Maduro.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

As the Trump administration pushes forward with a new Iran deal, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg told a Paris gathering of the National Council of Resistance of Iran — an exiled Iranian opposition coalition aligned with the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran (MEK) — that Tehran’s rulers are weaker than they have been in decades and urged dissidents to seize what he described as a historic opening.

“The window is open wider than at any moment in a generation, and windows do not stay open forever,” Kellogg said at the two-day event. “The theocratic regime in Tehran will not leave voluntarily. You must force it. The hope is here. Now must come the action.”

Kellogg, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general and former U.S. special envoy for Ukraine, framed any disarmament agreement not as an endpoint, but as “the first step of something far larger,” saying it should become the foundation for Iran’s future without the current regime.

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Maryam Rajavi, the NCRI’s president-elect, used her remarks at the conference to argue that neither war nor negotiations had solved the threat posed by Tehran’s rulers. “A peaceful, non-nuclear Iran is possible only through the overthrow of this regime by the Iranian people and their organized Resistance,” Rajavi said, adding that any international agreement to end the war should include an end to executions of political prisoners and the killing of protesters.

Kellogg also invoked the NCRI’s 2002 disclosure of Iran’s Natanz and Arak nuclear sites, saying the group should play a role in pushing for strict verification of any agreement. “When I say trust, but verify, understand that verification is not an abstraction to this Council. It is your legacy,” he said. “You must be the conscience that ensures every barrel of uranium leaves, every centrifuge stops, and every promise on that page becomes a fact on the ground.”

The remarks came as NCRI organizers had expected tens of thousands of Iranian expatriates from North America and Europe to attend two days of events in Paris. French authorities banned a planned outdoor rally, citing security threats. A French court later upheld the ban, pointing to specific intelligence about alleged bomb threats and risks of violence involving rival Iranian opposition factions, including possible threats from Iranian regime-linked actors or monarchist groups.

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The NCRI’s main member organization is the MEK, which was previously listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S., U.K. and European Union before being delisted in 2012. The group is a major thorn in the side of the Tehran regime and has been the target of alleged Iranian plots in the U.S. and Europe, including a foiled 2018 bomb plot against the group’s rally outside Paris.

Despite the ban, demonstrators gathered at the site on Saturday. Police ordered the crowd to disperse and arrested around 20 people, a police source told AFP.

Ali Safavi, a member of the NCRI’s Foreign Affairs Committee, told Fox News Digital that the French decision amounted to “an unjustifiable act of capitulation,” arguing that Paris should have protected the rally rather than banning it, “Rather than yielding to intimidation, France should have defended the fundamental democratic right to peaceful assembly.”

Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson also criticized the French ban, calling it a “tragic mistake” and saying Western capitals must allow Iranian opposition voices to be heard.

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“If the voices of freedom are to be heard in Iran, then we in the West must allow those voices of freedom to be heard in our capitals and around the world,” Johnson said during his speech.

Former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba also addressed the event Saturday, linking Ukraine’s struggle against Russia to the Iranian opposition’s fight against Tehran. Kuleba said Ukrainians had wanted to join the rally and were “appalled” by the French ban, adding, “The people of Ukraine stand by those who defend democracy, freedom, liberty in their lands.”

He also pointed to Iran’s support for Russia’s war effort, saying that while Russian ballistic missiles were targeting Kyiv, drones using technology “provided to Russia by the current regime in Iran” were also striking Ukraine.

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“Like you, I know very well what it means to be attacked and killed and destroyed by the regime that currently holds its grip over the people of Iran,” Kuleba said.

The French government did not immediately respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment.