Overview
Though they chose new leaders from different ends of the political spectrum, voters in both Colombia and NYC appeared to have one goal in common – the promise of security and basic social support for working-class people, highlighting growing public frustration with democratic institutions that have failed to provide either.
The Deeper Question
As countries across the Americas went to the polls last week to choose their next slate of leaders, the real referendum was not about right vs left, but a reflection of shifting public attitudes toward democracy:
While the political tug-of-war between liberal and conservative played out in Colombia and New York City with two very different results, the deeper question it raised was what do democratic values mean to voters who believe democracy has failed them?
The outcomes of both elections moved in opposite political directions, but both signaled the same underlying dynamic: voters cast their ballots for candidates they believed would do the most to address their most pressing concerns — from public safety to the rising cost of living affecting working-class families.
In Colombia, on June 22, progressive candidate Iván Cepeda lost the presidential election by a slim margin to Trump-backed right-wing candidate Abelardo De La Espriella, a former criminal lawyer.
Then, on June 24 in New York City, progressive leaders endorsed by NYC’s democratic socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani, claimed victory in a seismic shift that swept establishment democrats out of primary races, ahead of the November midterms.
Darializa Avila Chevalier defeated five-term incumbent Adriano Espaillat in New York’s 13th congressional district, Claire Valdez won the open seat primary in New York’s 7th Congressional District, and Brad Lander ousted incumbent Congressman Dan Goldman in New York’s 10th Congressional District, winning his race by some 30 points.
Though they chose new leaders from different ends of the political spectrum, voters in both Colombia and NYC appeared to have one goal in common – the promise of security and basic social support for working-class people, highlighting growing public frustration with democratic institutions that have failed to provide either.
What drove Colombian voters to the polls?
Political analysts at a June 12 American Community Media briefing examined Colombia’s presidential runoff election and what it could mean for democracy across the Americas. Though observers have described Colombia’s election as another example of growing political polarization created by class, geography, and ideology, Professor Beatriz Magaloni, Professor of Political Science and Senior Fellow at Stanford University, argued that “the language of polarization obscures more than it reveals.”
In Colombia, “what we are observing is not about ideology,” said Magaloni. The real issue is how citizens experience democracy in their daily lives, and that they feel the state has failed to protect and serve them. The country is deeply divided in a landscape scarred by decades of conflict, and the contrasts among voters reflect people’s different experiences with weak government institutions. The election results are “about the way people experiment with democracy in their everyday lives,” she said.
The race between Iván Cepeda of the ruling Pacto Histórico coalition and Abelardo de la Espriella of the Salvación Nacional movement was about more than choosing a new president or a contest between the political left and right. Rather, it was a referendum on the future of Colombia’s democracy, the peace process, and the country’s approach to security after decades of conflict.
After years of experiencing the state’s inability to provide security and basic services, voters viewed the election as a choice between competing visions for addressing long-standing failures.
Urban Insecurity
These failures look very different in urban and rural Colombia, which regard insecurity very differently. said Magaloni.
Many urban voters wanted tougher security policies to combat rising crime, extortion, and insecurity, while rural communities were more focused on land rights and preserving the peace process.
”Resident citizens in Colombia, especially in urban areas and semi-urban areas, find Colombia dangerous – they suffer crime, they suffer extortion, they suffer insecurity – the state is not able to provide security for them,” explained Magaloni.
“They are experiencing the threat of not being able to walk their streets, not being able to send their kids to school, being frightened to just go every day into the streets, and not knowing if they are going to come back alive.”
Frustrated by the government’s inability to provide basic street-level safety, voters in cities and towns wanted “very fast solutions.” The desire for quick and decisive action boosted support for Abelardo de la Espriella, who promoted a tough-on-crime strategy similar to El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele.
His supporters viewed the strict security measures and “tough hand” (mano dura) approach he proposed against criminals as necessary responses to everyday violence, not as threats to democracy, said Magaloni.
Rural Insecurity
Conversely, in rural Colombia, especially in Afro-descendant and Indigenous communities, the effects of state failure and insecurity were even more severe. Instead of bringing lasting peace, the peace agreement was followed by the breakup of armed groups into a growing number of smaller, criminal organizations driven mainly by profit rather than political ideology. Many communities are trying to reclaim land lost during earlier periods of violence, particularly between 2002 and 2010, making them targets for armed groups seeking to control these territories.
For local communities, the greatest threat is not street crime, but armed militia groups competing for control of valuable areas to use as drug trafficking corridors and lands rich in minerals, oil, and other natural resources. Armed groups exert control over these territories by using violence to protect their interests and targeting community leaders, Indigenous leaders, and land defenders. These are “communities which are mostly rural, Afro-descendent and indigenous communities, or just simply rural Colombians that have been abandoned by the state. They are experiencing serious human rights abuses from armed criminal groups ….formed from former paramilitary organizations that never disarmed themselves,” said Magaloni.
“They are killing social leaders, defenders of territories, indigenous leaders, Afro-descendant communities, and attacking the very structure of local democracy that rural Colombia has.”
These attacks have weakened local democracy and made it harder for communities to defend their rights.
Conditions in rural communities
Manuel Ortiz, a journalist with Stanford University’s Democracy Action Lab, covered conditions affecting indigenous and Afrocolian communities in Colombia, as a result of national political decisions impacting land restitution efforts, internal displacement, migration, and the peace process. He described a violent confrontation over territory in Cauca, southwestern Colombia, between the Nasa and Misak indigenous groups, in which more than 100 people were injured, and nine people died.
“The problem here is that the farm workers and the indigenous, in many cases they don’t own the land. So when they are forcibly displaced, and when they try to return to the land, they have no paper saying that they own the land,” Ortiz explained.
Alex Sierra, an anthropologist with Centro de Estudios Sociojurídicos Latinoamericanos (CESJUL), who monitors electoral processes, voter behavior, and political dynamics in the region, pointed out that drug trafficking remains a major challenge for Colombia. He said that reducing the violence requires more than targeting drug production in the country. It also requires addressing the international demand for illegal drugs, which continues to fuel criminal organizations and conflict.
The election presented voters with two very different visions for Colombia’s future. Sepeda supported continuing the 2016 Peace Accords, expanding land restitution, and advancing the peace process. De la Espriella favored a tougher security approach that critics argued could revive policies associated with the years of intense conflict and land seizures under former President Álvaro Uribe.
Impact on legal protections
Although many Colombians continue to support civil liberties and the right to protest, growing insecurity has weakened support for legal protections such as due process and the rule of law. “That’s where I see the danger,” said Magaloni; many voters are now willing to tolerate stronger security measures, even if they undermine protections that shield individuals from the ‘tyranny of the state,’ because they believe democracy has failed to provide one of its most basic promises: personal safety.
“I think that’s what is pitting Colombians against each other. Really, they want very fast solutions, and they want people to be sent to prison,” Magaloni said.
The mano dura strongman approach
Speakers at the briefing also pointed out that governments sometimes use language that portrays certain groups as dangerous or less deserving of rights to justify harsh security measures. This trend, they argued, can weaken human rights protections and strengthen what Magaloni describes as “authoritarian enclaves” operating within democratic systems.
The Colombian election mirrors global democratic trends, including the current political climate in the United States, and right-wing populist movements that have gained support in countries such as Argentina, Ecuador, and El Salvador. The “mano dura strongman approach” championed by de la Espriella, said the panel, finds a direct parallel in the rhetoric of the Trump administration, particularly concerning immigration enforcement.
These movements often attract voters who are frustrated with weak democratic institutions and rising insecurity by offering simple solutions to complex problems.
In systematic surveys around Latin America, “67% of respondents regard insecurity as the most important problem,” said Magaloni. “Citizens across the region are very disillusioned with democracy, because democracy does not deliver what they regard as important.”
Why NYC voters went to the polls
In NYC, growing voter frustration with the Democratic establishment’s response to the city’s affordability and housing crisis for working and middle-class residents led to the success of democratic socialist candidates in the primaries.
NYC’s election results suggest voter rejection of establishment Democratic approaches that have failed to protect working-class people from skyrocketing rents, high taxes, and everyday financial pressures. Seeking alternatives to centrist Democratic policies, voters voiced their frustration by backing interventions like rent freezes, stronger tenant protections, and higher taxes on the wealthy to reduce their cost-of-living burdens
Ultimately, these elections are a stark reminder that for democracy to survive, it must deliver, “for people to continue to embrace… its normative principles,” said Magaloni. If the state cannot solve “ancient, really very, very old problems of violence,” or cost-of-living crises, voters will continue to experiment with more radical, and potentially anti-democratic, alternatives.
