Abelardo de la Espriella, a Trump-aligned lawyer who has never held elected office, narrowly won Colombia’s presidential runoff on Sunday, June 21, swinging the country sharply to the right and setting off both jubilation and violent protest.

De la Espriella took 49.66 percent of the vote to 48.70 percent for the left-wing senator Iván Cepeda, a margin of roughly 247,000 ballots out of about 26 million cast, according to electoral authorities. With nearly 12.9 million votes, he became the most-voted presidential candidate in Colombian history.

The 47-year-old, who adopted the canary-yellow national football jersey as a campaign uniform and styles himself “The Tiger,” ran on an “iron fist” security platform. He has pledged to scrap peace talks with dissident armed groups and to launch a 90-day campaign of U.S.-backed airstrikes against them, while promising an “absolutely democratic government” that would “govern for all Colombians.”

As results came in, thousands of demonstrators gathered in major cities. In Cali, protesters burned American flags and clashed with riot police; in Bogotá, crowds burned tires and hurled bricks at officers. Elsewhere, de la Espriella’s supporters poured into the streets waving flags and voicing hope that he would restore security.

Cepeda declined to concede immediately, saying he would acknowledge the outcome only “once the count has been completed” and verification checks were finished — though reversing the result would require overturning hundreds of thousands of votes.

The campaign was among the most violent in recent Colombian memory, marred by guerrilla bomb attacks and the murder of a leading conservative presidential contender. Outgoing president Gustavo Petro, a leftist barred from immediate re-election, questioned the result and called for a thorough recount.

De la Espriella’s victory hands the United States a friendly government in a strategically pivotal South American nation and points to a confrontational turn in Colombia’s decades-long effort to manage its armed groups through negotiation rather than force.