Colombian Runoff Vote Expected to Shift Decades-Long Conflict

Frontrunner Abelardo de la Espriella has vowed to return to full-scale military confrontation with armed groupsGhost of far-right paramilitaries hovers over Colombia’s presidential runoff voteColombians are going to the polls in a presidential runoff expected to trigger a dramatic shift in the country’s decades-long armed conflict, now at its most violent point since the landmark 2016 peace agreement between the government and most of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc). Polls show the frontrunner is the Trump-admiring far-right lawyer and millionaire businessman Abelardo de la Espriella, who has vowed to abandon President Gustavo Petro’s “total peace” plan of negotiating the disarmament of all criminal organisations and instead return to full-scale military confrontation with armed groups. Continue reading...