The international press corps has arrived in Bogotá, dusting off their standard template for Latin American elections. The narrative is already written: Sunday’s presidential election is a historic turning point. Voters will choose between Iván Cepeda’s continuation of the left's "Paz Total" policy, Paloma Valencia’s center-right institutionalism, or Abelardo de la Espriella’s Bukele-style iron fist. The talking heads insist that the ballot box holds the key to ending half a century of endemic violence.
It is a comforting lie.
I have spent years analyzing Latin American security policy, tracking the shift of armed groups, and watching governments pour billions down the drain of failed disarmament treaties. Here is the uncomfortable reality that nobody in a tailored suit wants to admit: Colombian presidential elections are completely irrelevant to the trajectory of the country's violence.
The belief that changing the tenant in the Casa de Nariño will magically pacify Catatumbo, Arauca, or Guaviare relies on a fundamentally flawed premise. It assumes that the groups pulling the triggers care who wins, or that the Colombian state possesses the actual monopoly on violence required to enforce a policy change. It does not.
To end the bloodshed, we must stop treating an economic and logistical reality as a political problem.
The Myth of Political Violence
Mainstream commentary loves to frame Colombia’s conflict through an ideological lens. Left-wing guerrillas versus right-wing paramilitaries. Social justice versus institutional order.
This framework died a decade ago.
The groups driving today’s body count—the National Liberation Army (ELN), the fragmented dissident factions of the FARC like Iván Mordisco’s network, and the Clan del Golfo—are not fighting for a seat in Congress or a revised constitution. They are multinational logistics corporations. Their business lines are cocaine, wildcat gold mining, human trafficking, and extortion.
Look at the data. Under the current administration, coca cultivation and cocaine production have soared to record highs. Just days ago, a brutal turf war between rival FARC dissident factions in the jungles of Guaviare left at least 52 fighters dead. This was not a debate over agrarian reform. It was a violent corporate restructuring over strategic trafficking corridors.
When an organization commands thousands of armed personnel and controls billions of dollars in illicit revenue, a change in the presidency does not alter their business model. If Cepeda wins and offers more negotiations, they use the ceasefires to consolidate territory and restock inventory—exactly as they did over the last four years. If Valencia or De la Espriella wins and promises a military offensive, the cartels simply adjust their security budgets, move deeper into the jungle, and wait out the four-year term.
The state is a temporary nuisance; the market is permanent.
The Illusion of the Iron Fist
The loudest counter-argument to the failed peace talks is the "Bukele Model." De la Espriella’s platform leans heavily on this, promising to replicate El Salvador’s mass incarcerations and uncompromising security posture. It sounds great in a campaign ad. In practice, it is a geographical and logistical impossibility.
| Metric | El Salvador | Colombia |
|---|---|---|
| Land Area | ~21,000 sq km | ~1,141,000 sq km |
| Topography | Compact, urbanized | Andean mountains, Amazon jungle, Pacific mangrove swamps |
| Primary Criminal Revenue | Localized extortion | International cocaine and gold supply chains |
| Armed Group Structure | Urban street gangs (Maras) | Heavily armed, decentralized regional armies |
You cannot deploy a neighborhood policing strategy to clear an entrenched army out of the Amazon jungle. The Clan del Golfo alone commands over 7,500 heavily armed members. The ELN and FARC dissidents field at least another 11,000. These are not street thugs cornering shopkeepers; these are military units equipped with automatic weapons, landmines, and anti-aircraft capabilities.
When former President Álvaro Uribe launched the U.S.-backed Democratic Security policy in the early 2000s, it took billions of dollars in American aid, massive troop surges, and years of intense combat just to push the FARC back from the main highways. It did not eradicate them. Today, with U.S. foreign aid being cut, the idea that a new president can simply order a military victory without bankrupting the state is pure fantasy.
Dismantling the "People Also Ask" Consensus
When people search for solutions to Colombian instability, the questions reflect a naive understanding of state power. Let's look at what the public asks, and why the standard answers are wrong.
Can the 2016 Peace Accords still save Colombia?
The short answer is no, because the accords solved a problem that no longer exists. The 2016 agreement successfully demobilized the bureaucratic, centralized leadership of the old FARC. But it failed to address the underlying economic vacuum.
According to data from the Council on Foreign Relations, key components of the accords—like comprehensive rural reform and solutions to the illicit drug problem—remain heavily delayed or unimplemented. Because the state failed to establish a meaningful presence in the vacated territories, newer, more ruthless factions simply walked in and took over the vacant infrastructure. The peace process didn't end the war; it just decentralized it.
Why does peace negotiation always fail with the ELN?
Negotiations fail because the ELN is not a top-down organization. It operates as a loose federation of regional fronts. The negotiators sitting at a table in Caracas or Havana have little control over the commanders making millions from extortion in Arauca or kidnapping in Chocó. A president cannot sign a treaty with a group that has no single authority to enforce it.
The Hard Truth: The Three Lines of Action That Matter
If voting cannot fix the violence, what can? We must abandon the obsession with high-level peace signings and dramatic military rhetoric. Instead, Colombia needs to pivot toward aggressive, unglamorous economic sabotage.
1. Interdict the Currency, Not Just the Coca
Seizing tons of cocaine makes for great press conferences, but it is an inefficient tax on a high-margin business. The real vulnerability of Colombia's armed groups is their liquidity.
The next administration must ruthlessly target the financial supply chains that allow illicit cash to enter the formal economy. This means cracking down on the informal gold trading networks in Medellín and Cali, auditing the agricultural fronts used to launder money, and tracking the chemical precursors necessary for processing coca. If you make it impossible for a commander to buy weapons or pay his foot soldiers, the organization collapses from the inside.
2. Radical Territorial Substitution
The state cannot protect every square kilometer of the countryside with a rifle. It must out-compete the cartels economically.
Previous crop substitution programs failed because they offered farmers peanuts to grow cacao or coffee without providing the roads to get those goods to market. The only way to break the dependency on coca is massive, concentrated infrastructure spending in specific choke points like the Catatumbo or the Pacific coast. If a farmer can make a predictable, legal living because a paved road connects his village to a major port, the cartels lose their labor pool.
3. De-escalate the Rhetoric, Decentralize Security
Stop pretending a grand strategy from Bogotá works for the entire nation. The security dynamic in the department of Nariño has nothing to do with the dynamic in Norte de Santander.
Instead of waiting for a national directive, regional governors and local mayors must be empowered with the resources to negotiate localized security arrangements, improve intelligence sharing, and reinforce vulnerable municipalities.
The downside to this approach is obvious: it lacks the dramatic flair of a presidential decree or a sweeping military victory. It takes years of meticulous, institutional grinding. It does not provide a neat soundbite for Sunday night's election coverage.
But continuing to believe that the right president will miraculously deliver peace is a luxury Colombia can no longer afford. The voters heading to the polls on Sunday are participating in a vital democratic ritual, but they are not choosing the end of the war. They are merely choosing who gets to manage the stalemate.
