Colombia's newly elected Congress is sworn in on Monday, opening the last stretch of a transition that will hand the presidency to Abelardo de la Espriella on August 7 and reverse several of the defining foreign-policy positions of the outgoing government.
De la Espriella, a lawyer running on the right, defeated the left-wing senator Iván Cepeda in the June 21 runoff by 49.66% to 48.70% — a margin of 0.96 percentage points, the narrowest in Colombian presidential history. The Congress elected in March gives him a working majority assembled with the support of the traditional parties, even though the leftist Historic Pact remains the largest single bloc in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
The clearest break is with Israel. On July 2 de la Espriella spoke with Israeli President Isaac Herzog and the two agreed to move ahead with restoring full diplomatic relations. His incoming government has also said it will open a Colombian embassy in Jerusalem.
That reverses a decision by the outgoing president, Gustavo Petro, who severed diplomatic ties with Israel in May 2024 over its military campaign in Gaza, accusing the Israeli government of grave violations of international law. It was among the most emphatic diplomatic breaks any government made over the war.
An embassy in Jerusalem would put Colombia in a small group. Eight countries currently maintain embassies in the city — the United States, Guatemala, Honduras, Kosovo, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Fiji and Somaliland, which opened one in June. Most governments keep their missions in Tel Aviv on the grounds that Jerusalem's status should be settled in negotiations rather than recognised unilaterally.
The new Congress has a crowded opening. A tax reform is due to be filed, and Bogotá has been preparing for street demonstrations around the installation. De la Espriella's majority depends on parties that have their own priorities and no particular loyalty to a president who has never held elected office.
The scale of what the incoming government has said it will attempt — a foreign-policy realignment, a tax package and a security agenda — will be tested against the reality of the mandate behind it. Fewer than 100,000 votes separated the two candidates in a country of more than 50 million people.