In just over a week, Colombians will return to the voting booth in the second round of the 2026 presidential election. The choice ahead of them is stark: on the one hand is Ivan Cepeda, successor to the incumbent president Petro; on the other is Abelardo de la Espriella, protégé of the international far right. Neither candidate could claim outright victory in the first round, so they will go head to head on 21 June.

This week we publish a reflection on the elections by Adriana Cabrera Velásquez, CPT Colombia’s Program Support Coordinator. She tells us what’s at stake. One candidate stands in “defense and protection of human rights, the environment, and social movements”, while his opponent “proposes the cancellation of the peace talks, abandoning the implementation of the 2016 agreements, unrestrained fracking, the total subjugation of Colombia to the will of the United States, the regression of human rights and social advances, budget cuts to the regions, work in favor of the wealthiest, and the intensification of neoliberalism and neofascism.”

Across the Atlantic, in Belfast in the North of Ireland, we saw what it looks like when fascism gains ground. Anti-migrant racist riots broke out after reports that a refugee from Sudan tried to kill a local man. Large groups of masked men tried to burn down the homes of migrants, while many were still inside. They had been gathering their addresses for months, going door to door and asking people to report on the whereabouts of their migrant neighbors. It was yet another pogrom, reminiscent of what has periodically broken out at Europe’s borderlands over the last decade of the migration “crisis”.

This current is gathering strength across the world, proposing a vision of the future in which only a few can flourish. In Colombia, on 21 June, a different future is on the line. It’s a close run race, and Cepeda, once predicted to win, now trails narrowly behind his opponent. CPT Colombia warns there are indications of foreign interference and irregularities in the electoral registry. But they remind us that it’s not a foregone conclusion. “We will not let fascism take over Colombia,” Cepeda has said. “The fight continues, and we will triumph.”