- Title / Office:
- president (2026-), Colombia
Abelardo de la Espriella
Who is Abelardo de la Espriella?
How did Abelardo de la Espriella rise to political prominence?
What platform did Abelardo de la Espriella run on during his presidential campaign?
What was notable about Abelardo de la Espriella’s inauguration as president?
Abelardo de la Espriella (born July 31, 1978, Bogotá, Colombia) is a Colombian lawyer and conservative politician. He has served as Colombia’s president since August 2026, after he narrowly defeated the left-wing senator Iván Cepeda. A wealthy criminal defense attorney and political outsider who had never previously held public office, de la Espriella rose rapidly to political prominence during the 2025–26 presidential campaign. He ran on a nationalist law-and-order platform that promised a more aggressive use of the military against drug traffickers and other armed groups operating in Colombia.
Background
De la Espriella was born in Bogotá in 1978 but was raised on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, in the mid-sized city of Montería. After secondary school, he returned to Bogotá for college and law school, where he focused his studies on criminology. In 2002, he launched his own legal firm, De La Espriella Lawyers. The firm now has three offices in Colombia and specializes in criminal defense.
In 2008, he married Ana Lucía Pineda, the daughter of a diplomat. They have four children together.
About 2013, de la Espriella moved to Miami, where he opened a fourth office for his law firm. Friends and associates later told The New York Times that he was tired of the safety risks he faced in Colombia and was looking for a reprieve. Although he was not licensed to practice law in Florida himself, he hired colleagues who were. The New York Times also reported that de la Espriella started working closely with Jorge Luis Hernández Villazón, known in Colombia as Boliche (“bowling ball”). Hernández had trafficked drugs for right-wing paramilitary leaders when he was younger, before becoming an informant for U.S. federal law enforcement agencies. In Miami, Hernández worked as a legal assistant for many firms and would help connect attorneys with clients facing drug trafficking charges. De la Espriella, in part because of his work with Hernández, came to be known as a lawyer to the mafia, a characterization that he has rejected. Among the clients de la Espriella represented was Alex Saab, a Colombian businessman who became a close associate of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. Saab’s relationship with de la Espriella later drew scrutiny from U.S. investigators looking into Saab’s financial dealings, although de la Espriella was never charged with wrongdoing. As scrutiny of Saab intensified, de la Espriella distanced himself from his former client, saying that he had ended their relationship in 2019. Saab subsequently faced multiple U.S. prosecutions involving money laundering and, in a separate case brought in 2026, pleaded guilty to money-laundering conspiracy.
Over time, de la Espriella turned his attention to other pursuits: promoting a fashion line (de la Espriella Style) and a rum brand (Ron Defensor), hosting a podcast, writing crime novels, and running several businesses in Coral Gables, Florida, including a piano bar and restaurant, a liquor store, and a gelato shop. De la Espriella is an amateur opera singer, and he often sang at his bar. “He’s more of an artist than a business person,” his longtime accountant, Daniel Diaz de la Rocha, told The New York Times. He also made his political views known. In 2018, he wrote a book, Muerte al Tirano (“Death to the Tyrant”), in which he argued that Maduro ought to be assassinated.
Presidential campaign and election
In 2023, he was naturalized as a U.S. citizen, and he has said that he stopped practicing law about the same time. In 2024, he and his family moved to Florence; his explanation was that he wanted his children to connect with their Italian heritage.
In 2025, de la Espriella returned to Colombia, where he announced he was running for the presidency. In his campaign, he fashioned himself as a right-wing populist. He announced a radical economic program, claiming he would cut spending by 40 percent, and said he would revive the mining and oil industries and authorize fracking. Central to his platform was the pledge that instead of negotiating with armed groups—as the sitting president, Gustavo Petro, had done—he would bomb them extensively and have the military shoot down their planes. He also proposed building 10 mega-prisons in remote jungle locations.
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On foreign policy, de la Espriella promised to resume diplomatic relations with Israel and sever ties with Cuba and Nicaragua. He has also vowed to participate in the “Shield of the Americas,” a union of right-wing Latin American politicians convened by U.S. Pres. Donald Trump to fight drug trafficking.
In the May 2026 election, de la Espriella won approximately 43 percent of the vote, more than any other candidate; but since no candidate won a majority, the race went on to a second round. U.S. Pres. Donald Trump chose that moment to announce he was endorsing de la Espriella, citing the candidate’s “tremendous accomplishments in life” and his political support for Trump. In June, de la Espriella won the runoff election by a single percentage point.
Six weeks later, he was sworn into office in the southwestern city of Cali—not in Bogotá, where the ceremony is normally held. Cali has been known to have a significant cartel presence.