Elections in Colombia: Who is Iván Cepeda, President Petro's candidate

In Colombia's tumultuous electoral campaign, Senator Iván Cepeda was not considered the left's favorite until the end of 2025; he was not the establishment candidate for 2026.

But since winning his party's primaries, he has dominated the campaign, including on his own terms: many public events, few interviews and no debates. He's the candidate to beat.

How did he grow up? There was a turning point that boosted this politician, strangely averse to controversies in a country where they abound: the case against Álvaro Uribe.

In July 2025, when a judge found the former president guilty of procedural fraud and obstruction of justice (he was later acquitted), Cepeda, who was both victim and witness in that trial, became the leading candidate for President.

After all, who is Cepeda, what does he propose and why could he be Gustavo Petro's successor?

Son of an assassinated leader and left-wing politician
Cepeda is 63 years old: he was born on October 24, 1962, in Bogotá. He is a senator for the Historic Pact, the governing party, and has just won the party's internal primaries to be the presidential candidate in 2026.

He is the son of Manuel Cepeda Vargas, deputy of the Patriotic Union (a party that emerged as a political arm of the FARC and the Communist Party after the guerrilla group's agreements with the government in 1984), murdered in 1994, and of Yira Castro, communist leader and former councilor of Bogotá, who died in 1981.

The death of Cepeda Vargas was one of the events recognized by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in 2023 as the extermination of a political movement.

Since then, Iván Cepeda has demonstrated his stoic character as a leftist leader: images of a young Cepeda, interviewed on the street shortly after learning of his father's death, on his way to university, went viral. This has been the senator's trademark: a calm voice that, from his ideological perspective, makes a constant call for justice.

Cepeda studied Philosophy at the University of Saint Clement of Ohrid, in Sofia, Bulgaria, and specialized in international humanitarian law at the Catholic University of Lyon, France.

Colombian presidential candidate for the political party Pacto Historico, Ivan Cepeda takes part during the result reception event of the political party Pacto Historico during the congressional elections in Colombia, March 8, 2026 in Bogota, Colombia. (Photo by: Luisa Borja Luna/Long Visual Press/Universal ImagesGroup via Getty Images) - Luisa Borja Luna/Long Visual Press/Universal ImagesGroup via Getty Images
He is married to Blanca del Pilar Rueda, an employee of JEP (Special Jurisdiction for Peace); the couple has two children.

Cepeda's political trajectory reflects his activism in a hostile country. He was exiled to Europe between 1998 and 2004 after receiving threats for reporting links between politicians and paramilitaries.

In 2003, he founded the National Movement of Victims of State Crimes. In 2010, he was elected to the Chamber of Representatives for Bogotá by the Polo Demático party, of which Gustavo Petro was also a member. Since 2014, he has been a senator, re-elected in 2018 and 2022, this time representing the Historic Pact, a party that was the coalition of left-wing groups that brought Petro to power in 2022.

In Congress, Cepeda served as co-chair of the Peace Commission and as a member of the Second Senate Committee. He facilitated the peace process between the government of Juan Manuel Santos and the FARC. He also participated in dialogues with the ELN (National Liberation Army) and collaborated in initiatives to bring the Gulf Clan closer together, as part of Petro's "total peace" policy.

In his legislative work, Cepeda publicly denounced cases of parapolitics and links between businessmen and paramilitaries.

The Uribe case and the Historic Pact candidacy
In 2012, former president Álvaro Uribe - from the opposite end of the political spectrum and Cepeda's biggest opponent - accused him of alleged obstruction of justice.

In 2018, the Federal Supreme Court closed the case against Cepeda due to lack of sufficient evidence and opened an investigation against Uribe for the same crimes.

Uribe went from accuser to defendant, then to guilty in 2015 and finally acquitted: just a week ago, the Superior Court of Bogotá annulled the initial sentence of 12 years of house arrest against Uribe Vélez.

But this case gave Cepeda notoriety in the run-up to the 2026 elections: although he did not start out as a pre-candidate, Uribe's conviction gave him exposure in the media and launched a movement that led him to run for the nomination.

The candidate for President of Colombia, Iván Cepeda Castro, during a Polo Democracia rally at the UGT headquarters, on January 7, 2026, in Madrid, Spain. - Carlos Lujan/Europa Press via Getty Images
When the pre-candidate campaigns began, the government considered Gustavo Bolívar, former director of the Administrative Department for Social Prosperity and a close ally of Petro, and the former mayor of Medellín, Daniel Quintero, as the most likely candidates.

However, internal disputes on the left, problems with the National Electoral Council in relation to the primaries and the demands of the campaign ended up leading Cepeda to garner support from various sectors.

He participated in the Frente Amplio inter-party consultation in March 2026 to define a single left-wing candidate, but, after the success of the consultation (more than 2 million votes in a non-simultaneous election, from a single political group and not concomitantly with another national one), he is already being considered the practically definitive candidate.

What does Cepeda propose?
Cepeda is a leader who differs from many left-wing politicians in Colombia due to his discreet stance, his calm personality and his adherence to ideological principles, rather than the clientelistic logic of political operations in the country. Due to his trajectory as a member of the Communist Youth, he is seen as part of the radical wing of the Colombian left.

Its program emphasizes the continuity of "total peace" - Petro's model of negotiation with criminal groups, strongly criticized by opponents -, national reconciliation and the defense of human rights.

In his campaign speeches, Iván Cepeda proposed strengthening the protection of human rights against violence and stigmatization.

In international affairs, he defends an independent foreign policy, with an emphasis on the recognition of the Palestinian State, Latin American integration, the defense of migrants and the abandonment of the drug prohibitionist model.

On the social front, he speaks of an "agrarian revolution" and a popular economy that redistributes wealth through community-oriented public procurement. And on the political front, he promotes a "democratic revolution" - in his words, "peaceful and profound" - that will consolidate the current government's social changes and make them irreversible.

His running mate for vice president is Aida Quilcué, an indigenous leader and senator.

Can he win?
Will he be able to win in 2026 with this government plan? Without a doubt, the success of the Historic Pact primaries, in terms of electoral participation, together with the strength of his party in the legislative elections and the failure of the left primaries in March - in which he did not participate - are factors that have placed him in a privileged position, not only within the left spectrum, but throughout the campaign.

He enters the first round as the candidate to beat and has taken advantage of this advantage over the months, controlling his media exposure with few interviews and no participation in debates, a strategy that has been widely criticized.

The favoritism is such that his campaign has used the narrative that he could win directly in the first round, something that the polls do not prove.

The candidate for President of Colombia, Iván Cepeda Castro, holds a press conference at the UGT headquarters, on January 7, 2026, in Madrid, Spain. - Carlos Lujan/Europa Press via Getty Image
He is the candidate of the left and the government, having won the support of other candidates who will also be on the ballot (Luis Guillermo Murillo, Clara López and Carlos Caicedo).

He effectively marginalized Roy Barreras - the chameleon-like traditional politician who won the inter-party primaries in March - and positioned himself against an apathetic center and a right divided between two options.

Cepeda is Petro's candidate, whose term ends with relative popularity and what analysts and rivals consider his evident involvement in the campaign in favor of his candidate.

But Cepeda is considered a more dogmatic politician, although his years in Congress may give him the political skill necessary to forge consensus.

Petro came to power in 2022 with the banner of change, as the first left-wing president in the modern history of Colombia, but he had to seek support from traditional politicians and parties, and his first cabinet (among the many - and ephemeral - he formed) was the manifestation of a national and bureaucratic agreement between politicians of different positions.

To win, Cepeda may need to win over centrist voters or even those indifferent or disillusioned with the right and traditional parties; however, his campaign has always attracted the loyal base of the Historic Pact.

On the other hand, although he is the government's candidate, some voters may feel discouraged by Petro's erratic administration, the strong criticism he has received, and his inability to implement promised changes.

Cepeda is not a charismatic leader like Petro, and represents the left wing that the right finds easy to condemn.

For this reason, the current context in the region and the world is a double-edged sword: Cepeda would have to deal with an intransigent Donald Trump, prone to imposing economic sanctions, and the left's association with drug trafficking. Right-wing candidates in Colombia have been quite vocal in their criticism of the government and its supporters for its soft stance toward Nicolás Maduro and diplomatic disputes with the United States.

And the security factor in Colombia continues to be a battleground for the right: Petro's "total peace" policy - in which Cepeda played a key role - has not achieved tangible results and, on the contrary, has generated much national and international opposition.

Inheriting and deepening this perspective may not gain Cepeda votes if he reaches the second round and has to convince voters outside his party.

Source: CNN