Colombia Election: 'Total Peace' Challenged as Violence Surges

Four years after the president's pledge, the candidates vying to succeed him remain deeply divided over how to deal with a rising wave of guerrilla attacks.

The historic 2016 peace deal between the Colombian government and Latin America's largest rebel army achieved some successes: The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) agreed to lay down their weapons, and the violence that once wracked the country fell dramatically.

However, the deal could not by itself end the decades-long armed conflict. Successive governments have implemented the agreement slowly, while dissident Farc factions and other rebel groups refused to join.

When Gustavo Petro, a former member of another rebel group, became president in 2022, he pledged to achieve "total peace", signing deals with all armed groups in the country, including leftist guerrilla factions and organized crime syndicates.

Four years later, just weeks before the country elects Petro's successor, guerrilla attacks are intensifying and Colombians are experiencing a bitter sense of history repeating itself. Amid a surge in homicide rates, kidnappings and massacres, the decades-long internal armed conflict that has claimed nearly half a million lives has once again taken center stage in the election.

Twenty-one people were killed in a bomb attack on a major highway this past weekend, one of the deadliest attacks on civilians in the country's history. The attack was carried out by one of the most powerful dissident Farc groups, the Central Command, known by its Spanish acronym ECM.

"This is not an isolated incident," said María Victoria Llorente, executive director of the Ideas for Peace Foundation, a think tank. "It needs to be seen in the broader context of the evolution of organized violence in Colombia."

Petro's peace promise has become a key issue ahead of the first round of voting on May 31. The constitution prevents re-election, and the president's chosen candidate, left-wing senator Iván Cepeda – considered the architect of "total peace" – favors maintaining the program. However, right-wing candidates Abelardo de la Espriella and Paloma Valencia, who are close in the polls, have both promised to scrap the plan and return to all-out war once in office.

"It is clear that total peace has failed," Llorente said. "When this government began its term, six provinces of the country were contested. Today, that number is 13 or 14 provinces."

The basic premise was to offer armed groups benefits such as reduced sentences, the chance to keep some of their assets, and a suspension of military operations against them in exchange for disbanding, disarming, and transitioning to the legal economy.

Shortly after taking office, Petro announced a ceasefire with the country's five largest armed groups. Many analysts have noted that he did this without established procedures or monitoring mechanisms, elements that were crucial to the success of the initial peace deal with the Farc.

Soon after, the National Liberation Army (ELN) – now the country's largest rebel group – denied having agreed to any ceasefire. There have been other unsuccessful efforts to reach agreements with the ELN and other groups, but most negotiations are now frozen or have been canceled.

Meanwhile, armed factions have taken advantage of the temporary ceasefire to continue expanding – a process that was already underway before Petro – and clashing with each other for control of territory and illegal economies such as drug trafficking (Colombia is the world's largest cocaine producer) and mining.

In early 2025, fighting between the ELN and the dissident Farc faction Frente 33 left more than 80 people dead and 60,000 displaced, the largest forced displacement event in Colombian history.

Although he had strongly criticized deadly military operations when he first took office, Petro has authorized the resumption of shelling and airstrikes, some of which have led to the deaths of many minors forcibly recruited by criminal groups.

This year has become the most violent since the 2016 peace deal, and the election race is haunted by the assassination of the first presidential hopeful in more than three decades. Right-wing senator Miguel Uribe Turbay was shot at a campaign event in June 2025 by the dissident Farc group Segunda Marquetalia and died months later.

In February of this year, left-wing senator Aida Quilcué was briefly kidnapped while traveling through southwestern Colombia, in the same Cauca province where the weekend bomb blast occurred. For more than 20 years, she has fought for indigenous rights, facing countless "threats, attacks and forms of violence." But she says this ambush marked a new level of danger – the first time she had been kidnapped and the closest she felt to being assassinated.

Men in camouflage and face scarves forced Quilcué and her bodyguards to kneel and held guns to their backs. News of the kidnapping quickly made headlines and the government launched a search operation. Four hours later, the captives were released. In March, Quilcué was announced as the vice-presidential candidate on Cepeda's ticket.

"The election so far has been heavily impacted by a context of insecurity and violence," said Francisco Daza, coordinator of the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation of Colombia.

All major presidential candidates have reported receiving threats. Daza said some illegal armed groups want to interfere with the election cycle. "We are trying to limit the level of public participation in the electoral process," he said. "Murder and kidnapping are a warning."

He said many citizens are now avoiding political rallies and campaign events. Large rural areas have effectively become no-go zones for politicians, where campaigning without permission from armed groups can be extremely dangerous.

Llorente said there is a perception among some that the country has returned to its "worst moments" of violence, but she argued this is inaccurate. "The scale of the violence is very different," she said, noting that although figures have risen, the current rate of around 26 homicides per 100,000 people is still much lower than the peak of around 80 per 100,000 in the early 1990s.

Llorente stressed that the solution lies within Colombia. "We have a long track record of innovation in peace, security and transitional justice. We are not starting from scratch. The important lesson Colombia has learned is that all the tools available to the state – negotiation, use of public force, criminal policy – must be used. But they need to be applied much more strategically than has been done in this government," she said.

Catalina Beltrán of Colombia Risk Analysis said the next government, whether left-wing or right-wing, will face an extremely difficult challenge due to the fragmentation of the conflict, with groups spread across regions of the country.

"Rather than a single solution, the situation needs to be approached calmly, avoiding overly ambitious decisions like those made by this government," she said. "I would say that strengthening a mixed strategy of negotiation and offensive actions is probably the most appropriate approach."