The President-Elect stated that there would be a restructuring of the interior of THE administration and that the functions of the Unit for the Implementation of the Final Peace Agreement would be turned over to the National Security Commission.
EL EPECTADOR, July 13, 2026
(Translated by Eunice Gibson, CSN Volunteer Translator)
The President-Elect, Abelardo De la Espriella, has announced a number of changes in the interior of the next administration. The Office of the High Commissioner for Peace and the Unit for the Implementation of the Final Peace Agreement will be among those changes.
According to details provided by De la Espriella, the Unit for the Implementation of the Final Agreement will turn its functions over to the National Security Commission. Specifically, another one of the challenges that the President-Elect will have is what to do about the Peace Agreement, which has been the subject of some of his fiercest criticisms. The implementation of the ten-year-old Agreement does not appear in De la Espriella’s plan for his administration and, in fact, he has indicated that if it were up to him, he would eliminate “with a stroke of the pen” some of its components such as the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP).
“The Peace Commission will be over with and there won’t be any more phony peace processes in my administration,” he said. The new Chief Executive has inherited at least nine open negotiations by the Gustavo Petro administration with different armed groups, territories criss-crossed by battles between different criminal organizations, a Temporary Location Zone (ZUT in Spanish) that’s functioning, and a Peace Agreement that’s almost ten years old.
De la Espriella’s idea of eliminating peace negotiations with the armed groups doesn’t only bring with it the concerns about what will happen to the protection of civilians, but also to the Temporary Location Zones. They were a mechanism designed in the framework of “total peace” by President Gustavo Petro so that members of the armed groups could transition to civilian life.
In the same way, the incoming President detailed that, beginning on August 7, the objective of his administration will be “the security of the people and the total dismantling of that perverted system of impunity.”
While he prepares for his arrival at the Presidential Palace, the new President has signaled at various opportunities his intention to militarize this country, building mega-prisons and ending the peace negotiations. In his proposals, the candidate was talking about “remasterization” of the Democratic Security that was fostered during the administration of Álvaro Uribe Vélez (2002-2010) with the objective of recovering control of the countryside in 90 days.