As Colombia heads into a pivotal presidential runoff on Sunday, conservative outsider Abelardo de la Espriella is riding a wave of voter frustration over crime, cartels and economic uncertainty.

His rise comes as outgoing President Gustavo Petro faces mounting political turmoil, turning the election into a high-stakes battle over the future of one of America’s most important allies in Latin America.

De le Espriella’s campaign is built on a platform of law and order, anti-cartel crackdowns and repairing U.S.-Colombia relations as he faces leftist politician Iván Cepeda in the presidential runoff. Cepeda is from Petro’s socialist party.

COLOMBIAN PRESIDENT PETRO THREATENS MILITARY RESPONSE AFTER TRUMP WARNS COLOMBIA MAY BE NEXT TARGET

In a region increasingly defined by larger-than-life political figures, de la Espriella is known universally as “El Tigre,” and has transformed his nickname into a political movement. Campaign rallies feature tiger imagery, merchandise and slogans built around strength and fearlessness.

He has openly embraced comparisons to President Trump, presenting himself as a political outsider willing to confront entrenched elites, challenge progressive orthodoxies and restore what supporters describe as strength and order to government.

Earlier this week Trump endorsed him stating in part on social media that: “Colombian Presidential Candidate, “El Tigre (THE TIGER),” Abelardo de la Espriella, is a Smart, Strong, and Tough Leader, who fights tirelessly for, and loves, his Great Country and People, just like I do for the United States of America.”

Trump added, “Because of his tremendous accomplishments in life, and his political support for me, it is my Honor to give Abelardo my Complete and Total Endorsement. GET OUT AND VOTE FOR “EL TIGRE” ABELARDO DE LA ESPRIELLA — HE WILL NOT LET THE WONDERFUL PEOPLE OF COLOMBIA DOWN. It will rise to a new height of Greatness!”

TRUMP DOUBLES DOWN ON COLOMBIA CRACKDOWN, CALLS PETRO ‘LUNATIC,’ VOWS TO END ALL US PAYMENTS OVER DRUGS

Aside from the Trump comparison, he’s also been likened to El Salvador’s President Bukele. Like Bukele, he has built a political brand around toughness, disruption and public frustration with crime. His campaign rhetoric frequently emphasizes restoring state authority and defeating criminal organizations through overwhelming force.

Petro’s ally, Iván Cepeda, has pledged to continue the administration’s social and economic agenda while expanding negotiations with armed groups.

Cepeda’s campaign did not respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment on his campaign and hopes for the country.

Carlos Chacón, executive director of Instituto de Ciencia Política (ICP), a think tank in Colombia told Fox News Digital, “Colombia is torn between two models and two visions: the leftist model, which seeks to increase state intervention in the economy, a model already proven to generate fiscal deficits and economic crises; a model that prioritizes negotiations and appeasement over security, resulting in the strengthening of criminal networks nationwide; and, above all, a model whose political agenda is to alter the Constitution.”

US SANCTIONS COLOMBIAN PRESIDENT AND FAMILY OVER DRUG TRAFFICKING ALLEGATIONS

Chacón said the difference between the two candidates is clear, saying that Abelardo’s model “favors free enterprise and seeks to ensure security, regain territorial control, downsize the state, revitalize strategic sectors, and mend international relations, would be implemented entirely within the framework of the 1991 Constitution.” He added, “Abelardo has never spoken of replacing the constitutional model with an authoritarian one, as is the case with the project proposed by Petro, Cepeda.”

One of the recurring themes of de la Espriella’s campaign has been rebuilding a close relationship with Washington and pursuing a more aggressive security partnership against narcotrafficking and armed groups. He has advocated U.S.-backed operations against narco-terrorist camps and stronger bilateral cooperation on security issues.

De la Espriella rise comes as the outgoing Colombian President Petro faces a battle over allegations of improper involvement in the country’s presidential election. The head of Colombia’s congressional investigative commission has proposed suspending president Petro while authorities examine allegations that he improperly intervened in the presidential campaign on behalf of his political movement.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

The proposal has triggered fierce debate across Colombia, with supporters describing it as necessary accountability and critics arguing it exceeds constitutional authority. Petro has denied wrongdoing and remains in office.

The outcome of this election will help determine not only the future of Colombia’s security strategy, but also the trajectory of one of Washington’s most important allies in the Western Hemisphere.

Current and former Ukrainian officials are to return honours bestowed upon them by Poland after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was stripped of the country’s highest state honour.

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

Tensions have been rising between Kyiv and Warsaw since Zelenskyy named a military unit after the controversial World War Two Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).

In response to the move, Poland’s far-right president, Karol Nawrocki, announced that he was stripping Zelenskyy of the Order of the White Eagle.

On Saturday, Zelenskyy said he had sent the Order back to Poland, posting a photo to social media appearing to show it being packaged up ready to be shipped.

“We believed that the Order of the White Eagle, awarded in 2023, was meant for the Ukrainian People and our army,” he wrote, adding that Ukraine was “grateful to the Polish People for their support and cooperation”.

Cracks in the alliance?

Nawrocki has insisted that the decision was “not directed against the Ukrainian people” and that Poland would continue to support Ukraine.

Even so, many in Ukraine saw Nawrocki’s move as an attack.

Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, was the first to react, announcing that he would return the Commander’s Cross with Star of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland, which he received in 2022.

The head of the Office of the Ukrainian President, Kyrylo Budanov, and Ukraine’s ambassador to Poland, Vasyl Bodnar, followed suit by relinquishing their Officer’s Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland.

The second, third and fifth presidents of independent Ukraine, Leonid Kuchma (1994–2004), Viktor Yushchenko (2005–2010) and Petro Poroshenko (2014–2019), also all announced that they were giving up their Order of the White Eagle honours.

Poroshenko made it clear that he had taken the decision in reaction to the Polish president’s move, but that it was in no way directed against the Polish people.

Yushchenko also stressed that he was acting in solidarity with Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian army, while calling Nawrocki’s decision “irresponsible”.

How did the crisis begin?

On 27 May, Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a decree naming the Independent Special Operations Centre “North” of Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces as the “Heroes of the UPA”.

He said he had taken the decision “in order to restore the historical traditions of the national army and in view of the exemplary execution of the missions assigned in the defence of the territorial integrity and independence of Ukraine”.

The Ukrainian Insurgent Army, or UPA, was a Ukrainian guerrilla force formed in October 1942 in Volhynia, in north-western Ukraine, as the military wing of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B), an ultranationalist movement led by Stepan Bandera.

While fighting both the German army and Soviet forces, the organisation carried out massacres of the Polish population in Volhynia.

The decision has gone down particularly badly in Poland, and Nawrocki said he had learned of the move “with great sadness”.

“This is not how you build relations between nations,” he said on Friday, adding that glorifying the UPA gave Russian propaganda “a lot of oxygen for disinformation”.

The Polish president doubled down on Saturday, justifying his decision to withdraw the Order of the White Eagle from Zelenskyy by saying that his actions had overstepped the mark.

Some have argued that only Russia stands to gain from the breakdown in relations.

Poland has been one of Ukraine’s main allies since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, taking in hundreds of thousands of refugees and serving as a logistical hub for Western aid bound for Kyiv.

Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said he was convinced that, given the historical context, only Russia could profit from a Polish-Ukrainian dispute.

Sikorski shared a comment by journalist and columnist Witold Jurasz of the newspaper Onet, who argued that by stripping Volodymyr Zelenskyy of the Order of the White Eagle, Nawrocki had indeed won a moral victory but had also suffered a defeat – and, with it, so had Poland as a whole.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, whose government is at odds with Nawrocki, criticised Zelenskyy’s decision, while stressing that the Ukrainian leader had assured him that he had not intended to offend Poles. He called on the two nations not to lose their solidarity and not to let “history ruin our future”.

For his part, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, who had earlier described the Polish president’s decision as “a strategic mistake… from which only Russia will benefit”, expressed his gratitude to Poles who do not support escalating tensions with Ukraine.

“I wish to thank every Pole who has clearly expressed their stance against escalating tensions with Ukraine. We are staunch supporters of the same approach,” he wrote on X.

“We are wise nations, always able to find a way out of a difficult situation. We are bound by a difficult history, a shared future, and the threat from our age-old enemy – Moscow,” he added.

Russian officials – who have repeatedly invoked the Second World War as a means to justify Moscow’s invasion by claiming it is a fight against “neo-Nazis” in Ukraine – have welcomed Nawrocki’s decision.

“The Polish president has finally stripped (Zelenskyy) of the Order of the White Eagle,” said former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council.