Kenneth Glad
Public anger is changing elections across the region. Many voters are weighing promises of order, stability and fast action more heavily than traditional party loyalties.
Colombia’s June 21 runoff gave the region’s political turn a clear news peg.
With 99.99 percent of ballots counted in the preliminary tally, conservative lawyer and businessman Abelardo de la Espriella won Colombia’s presidential runoff with 12.96 million votes, or 49.66 percent, according to The Guardian.
Left-wing senator Iván Cepeda received 12.7 million votes, or 48.7 percent, leaving de la Espriella ahead by 250,830 votes. Cepeda declined to recognize the preliminary result and said his campaign would challenge results from 33,000 polling stations, while outgoing President Gustavo Petro said he would wait for the official scrutiny process before accepting the outcome.
De la Espriella campaigned against the approach of outgoing President Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s first left-wing president. Petro had pursued negotiations with armed groups under his “total peace” policy. De la Espriella promised military pressure, expanded prisons and a more confrontational strategy against drug networks and guerrilla factions.
Crime was not a side issue in the race. It was the campaign’s center.
Numbers have made fear harder to dismiss
Latin America and the Caribbean recorded a lower regional homicide rate in 2025 than in 2024, writes InSight Crime, with the median rate estimated at about 17.6 killings per 100,000 people. That regional decline, however, has not calmed voters in countries where violence has become more visible and politically disruptive.
Ecuador is the starkest example. Drug routes, port access and prison battles have helped turn a once relatively safe country into one of the region’s most alarming security cases. Peru has faced a sharp rise in extortion, while Colombia continues to struggle with armed groups, narcotics and rural insecurity.
For voters, the fear is often local and immediate. A shopkeeper paying protection money does not experience crime as a statistic. A commuter worried about kidnapping, robbery or gang activity is unlikely to wait patiently for institutional reform.
Candidates promising quick action have found an opening in that impatience.
Bukele’s shadow reaches beyond El Salvador
El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele has become the region’s most copied security brand.
His mass arrests, emergency powers and mega-prison system have drawn strong criticism from human rights groups. But his popularity at home has made him a reference point for politicians who want to appear decisive on crime.
De la Espriella has drawn from that image in Colombia. In Peru, conservative politician Keiko Fujimori has used a law-and-order message during a close runoff against nationalist congressman Roberto Sánchez, with vote counting leaving the country without a clear winner, according to WLRN.
Chile’s President José Antonio Kast, listed by Chile’s government as serving the 2026–2030 constitutional term, also rose on promises tied to crime, migration and border control.
The appeal is straightforward: Bukele presents an image of decisive action against crime, a message that has resonated with many voters across the region.
Security crackdowns can produce visible results, but they can also weaken courts, overcrowd prisons and normalize emergency rule. As crime becomes a more urgent electoral issue, legal limits are more easily portrayed as obstacles rather than safeguards.
Trump has become part of the regional story
U.S. President Donald Trump has played an unusually open role in this political moment.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Trump publicly supported several right-leaning Latin American figures and movements, including de la Espriella in Colombia and Javier Milei’s political camp in Argentina.
His endorsement of de la Espriella was especially striking because U.S. presidents have traditionally avoided such direct involvement in foreign elections.
The reaction has been divided.
Conservative candidates have treated Trump’s support as proof of international relevance. Critics in Colombia and Mexico have viewed it as interference.
Mexico’s left-leaning president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has questioned whether U.S. pressure over organized crime is being used to shape political outcomes before Mexico’s 2027 election.
Trump’s influence is not only about endorsements. It is also about style: Outsider language, attacks on elites, warnings about crime, suspicion of migration and promises to cut the state down to size.
The right is not rising in one form
The new conservative wave is not ideologically uniform.
Argentina’s Javier Milei is driven by libertarian economics and deep cuts to public spending. Bukele’s project is built around security and centralized authority. Kast in Chile has emphasized crime, migration and social conservatism. De la Espriella has combined anti-left rhetoric with promises of force against armed groups.
Their common ground is not a detailed policy manual. It is a political mood shaped by voters who believe existing institutions have failed to protect them.
Some are angry about inflation. Others are exhausted by corruption scandals, slow reforms or insecurity that affects daily life.
In several countries, recent left-wing governments won power by promising a fairer social order, then struggled to deliver enough change quickly enough to keep public confidence.
That disappointment has given right-wing candidates room to frame themselves as the alternative to drift, disorder and bureaucracy.
Governing is already proving messier than campaigning
Campaign promises can be sharp. Government is slower.
Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa entered office with ambitious security plans, including new prison infrastructure and tougher measures against gangs. Implementation has been slowed by money, institutions and the scale of the crisis.
Chile offers another warning. Kast campaigned on strong migration and security pledges, but turning those promises into policy has required legal steps, administrative capacity and cooperation from other countries. Deportation campaigns, prison reforms and border controls rarely move at the pace of a rally speech.
Colombia would present even greater complications for de la Espriella if his victory is confirmed. He would face a divided country, a difficult Congress and armed groups embedded in territory where the state has long been weak.
Winning an election does not build courts, train police, fund prisons or control remote regions by itself.
Democracy is now part of the security debate
The region’s political argument is no longer only about left and right. It is also about how much power voters are willing to give leaders who promise safety.
That question is uncomfortable because it touches daily life. People who feel abandoned by the state may not see democratic procedure as protection. They may see it as delay.
Eduardo Moncada, director of the Institute of Latin American Studies at Columbia University, told PBS that some voters conclude democracy has failed when it cannot keep their families safe. That belief gives hard-line politicians an opening.
Latin America has lived through this before in different forms. The region knows the cost of authoritarian rule, but it also knows the cost of weak states. The current rightward turn sits between those two fears.
For now, crime has given conservative and far-right leaders their strongest message in years. Whether they can deliver safer streets without damaging democratic institutions will decide whether this moment becomes a durable political era or another swing in a restless region.
Sources: Los Angeles Times, PBS, The Guardian, InSight Crime, WLRN,
