Ghost of far-right paramilitaries hovers over Colombia’s presidential runoff vote

<p>Colombians will choose on Sunday between two men whose lives have been very differently shaped by the militias, and whose visions for the country are poles apart</p><p>Whoever wins Sunday’s presidential runoff vote in Colombia, the country’s next leader will have a personal history intertwined with one of the criminal forces at the heart of a decades-long armed conflict that claimed nearly half a million lives.</p><p>The lives of Iván Cepeda and Abelardo de la Espriella have, in very different ways, been shaped by their relationship with Colombia’s paramilitaries – private armies originally established by rightwing landowners, drug traffickers, businessmen, mining magnates and politicians to fight leftwing guerrilla groups.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/20/colombia-presidential-election-paramilitary-militia-runoff">Continue reading...</a>