By Hubert Ariza, EL PAÍS, May 16, 2026
(Translated by Eunice Gibson, CSN Volunteer Translator)
Paloma’s “papa” has given the job back to her, her vice-president is a nuisance, the “Center” seems irrelevant. And the right isn’t up for it. On the left, nobody’s afraid of the Tiger.
In politics it takes a lifetime to build an image and only ten seconds to destroy it. There are thousands of examples. It’s worth remembering the clout on the head that César Gaviria gave his bodyguard and buried his presidential aspirations. This week, Abelardo de la Espriella, El Tigre”, made a lewd comment about the size of his penis to the well-known humorist, Jovanoty ,on the radio program Piso Ocho (Eighth Floor), thus demolishing his attempt to create a perception of him as a statesman and he now appears as one who sexually harasses a female journalist.
In the midst of such a hard-fought presidential campaign in which the right is relentlessly tearing itself apart, the joke about the size of El Tigre’s phallus turned into a missile that exploded in his hands, spilling rivers of ink and thousands of comments on social networks about the character of the candidate and the dimensions of his blunders.
When the presidential campaign had entered its final stretch, and it looked as if El Tigre was leaving Paloma Valencia behind, his outbursts have given some breathing space to his rival on the right. Abelardo added another confrontation with the press in the same week, this time live and direct with Caracol News, attacking the well-known newscaster María Lucía Fernández in misogynistic and disparaging terms, calling her ignorant and poisonous, because she was questioning him in a legitimate manner about his statements concerning ethics and law.
And to top it off, in another interview, he declared that, in the event of social protest in his eventual administration, he would not hesitate to kill anyone who might try to attack the Armed Forces. The death penalty is prohibited in Colombia, and social protest is a constitutional right. It was specifically the poor management of social upheaval in the past administration that created the conditions for the election of Petro.
So, to synthesize, it’s been a bad week for El Tigre. He’s taken a beating from his detractors and has been acting with neither make-up nor silicon. He’s reacting against the press, women, and social protest without any filter, trying to be more radical than Bukele in El Salvador, Milei in Argentina, or Trump in the United States. Colombia does not yet have the political conditions of any of those three countries. Whoever it is that’s writing the script for El Tigre is mistaking his audience.
With 15 days left in the first round, we will have to wait for the latest polls to find out how much self-inflicted damage El Tigre has done with his strategy. The courtiers that surround him, and most certainly he himself, believe it was a stroke of genius to get the whole country talking about the size of his penis and nothing about the candidate’s proposals, which are hardly any. But in Colombia, the phallocracy is in crisis, women are disgusted by machismo and misogynistic attitudes, and voting for a candidate who disrespects and mistreats them without shame, celebrating their aggressions, is not on the menu for the majority of women, much less in a society better educated and accustomed to the guarantee of people’s rights.
Thanks to his errors, El Tigre may have lost many female votes, but nobody knows if those votes will go to Paloma, whose campaign is stalled, where there have been mass exits, and many leaders of traditional parties are looking like migratory birds that are going from campaign to campaign, looking for the sun to shine on their individual interests.
There are many reasons for the crisis in this race. The first is that Paloma is talking to a country that doesn’t exist. Colombia made a change with Petro, and Uribism is on the way out. The ultimate proof is that El Tigre’s aspiration was born, grew, and multiplied by being against Uribe, swimming against the current of the man who received him in his house and was his mentor, while ignoring his authority and his legacy, ignoring his tantrums, and challenging his hegemony.
Colombia is no longer the territory of traditional parties, which are a minority now. The only strong party is Historic Pact, and Petro is in charge there. The others are social reasoning in crisis, the private property of decadent castes. Liberalism is the Gavírias’ empty mansion; conservatism is a structure that’s auctioned off every four years; Radical Change, without Germán Vargas Lleras, is a shell with a crack in it; Democratic Center is the extension of Ubérrimo; the “U” is the matriarchy of Dilian Francisca; the Green Party is a sunflower that’s dying out. For the majority of Colombians, the parties have lost their ideology and their programmatic North Star. They’re only interested in the credential, the elections, and the contracts.
Paloma marked her electoral destiny with two historic errors: saying that Uribe was her “papa” and proposing him for Minister of Defense.
This candidate also hit the floor when she added Juan Daniel Oviedo to her ticket, LGBTI, who is the ideological antithesis of her way of thinking. It was a blunder to mix apples and oranges and offer a future of ideological chaos between the heads of the administration. The country has already lived through those experiences, which are a source of institutional instability. You only need to recall a De la Calle conspiring against Samper in 1994. A Vice President brushed aside, resented, and conspiring. Too much weight on the wings of an eventual Paloma administration.
Therefore, for her own mistakes and those of her aides, Paloma’s attempt marks third place in the polls. Her hope is that El Tigre’s errors and last week he opened a window of opportunity to turn things around. Added up the votes from the right, however, they don’t have enough to defeat Cepeda, Petro’s heir, who keeps growing his numbers in the polls, leaving the two other contenders behind.
The wind is with Cepeda, while the right destroys itself and the center evaporates in the midst of the polarization. On May 31 when the polls close, the country will see clearly what Petro has built, and the loyalty of his followers. Then the second round begins. The best scenario for Cepeda is to confront El Tigre, who will land on the ballot with the right divided and scarred by its wounds, which now appear to be incurable. The marks of the tiger’s claws against the dove will not be cured with Vaseline, nor with an embrace. And if Paloma makes it to the second round, which is less probable, El Tigre’s followers will not recognize her as their new leader.
A triumph by El Tigre over Paloma would leave us with a number of lessons: first, a fatal blow to Uribism, which is now beginning to talk about a post-Uribism era, which is like talking about the inheritance from a patriarch who has not yet died. Second, the consolidation of a more reactionary and vengeful right, bent on lining up totally with the United States and undoing the reforms that Petro promoted. Third, the realization and emergence of a much more polarized country where the Palomista right would be in the minority and would have to rebuild itself to keep El Tigre from finishing it off for good.
And, as is natural, Cepeda’s victory would empower Petro even more. In the 21 days between the two rounds, he will fire off every power he can find to stop a phallocratic Tigre from burying the harvest of social reforms he planted during his four years. These elections are atypical and the finale of the reality show is more uncertain every day, although Cepeda has the advantage.
The electoral photograph right now shows that Cepeda has everything it takes to win, big crowds in plazas, hoping for the moment of the debates; El Tigre’s claws are out, he’s making jokes about his phallus, smashing at the press that shot him up in the polls. In this case, it’s worth paraphrasing the well-known refrain: raise tigers and they’ll turn off your cameras.
It also shows that Paloma’s “papa” isn’t up for it; her vice president is an impediment; and the center appears to be irrelevant. On the right, the soup’s not ready to serve. On the left, nobody’s afraid of the tiger.