Ghost of far-right paramilitaries hovers over Colombia’s presidential runoff vote

W hoever wins Sunday’s presidential runoff vote in Colombia , the country’s next leader will have a personal history intertwined with one of the criminal forces at the heart of a decades-long armed conflict that claimed nearly half a million lives. The lives of Iván Cepeda and Abelardo de la Espriella have, in very different ways, been shaped by their relationship with Colombia’s paramilitaries – private armies originally established by rightwing landowners, drug traffickers, businessmen, mining magnates and politicians to fight leftwing guerrilla groups. De la Espriella, 47, a far-right admirer of Donald Trump and self-styled outsider, launched his legal career defending paramilitary leaders. Iván Cepeda (left) and Abelardo de la Espriella. Composite: Getty Images Cepeda’s father was assassinated by army officers linked to a paramilitary group, and the 63-year-old leftwing senator forged his public career as a human rights activist exposing those groups’ crimes. The winner will take office on 7 August and inherit the country’s worst violence since the landmark 2016 peace agreement between the government and most of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. The two candidates advocate opposing strategies for dealing with the surge in crime. De la Espriella, who has led the polls since defeating Cepeda in the first round , supports a return to the kind of full-scale military confrontation that has done little to curb violence in the past. …