Colombia will elect a new president and vice president on May 31, in a contest that has been presented as a referendum on the policies of the country’s current president, Gustavo Petro, – particularly his controversial “total peace” initiative, which seeks to negotiate with the country’s remaining rebel groups. According to most voter assessments, violence linked to armed groups has worsened under the Petro government.
According to Colombia’s Electoral Observation Mission, 386 municipalities – around a third of the country – are vulnerable to violence from illegal armed groups, and data from the think tank Fundação Ideias para a Paz indicates that approximately 27 thousand people remain armed throughout the national territory.
In Robles, a neighboring town in the municipality of Jamundí, the streets leading to the police station are blocked by improvised barricades. Police are entrenched in sentry posts, using shelters made from sandbags and black fabric to scan the sky for drones.
Drones adapted to launch explosives have altered the dynamics of the Colombian armed conflict since 2024, representing one of the greatest threats to both civilians and security forces, especially along the border with Venezuela, in the north of Bolívar province and in coastal areas of the southwest.
Colombia’s Ministry of Defense reported that drone attacks hit 333 targets in 2025, compared to 61 incidents recorded in 2024. Meanwhile, the Army has recorded 107 drone attacks so far this year, which have already caused the deaths of two soldiers.
Local officials believe the region has become a victim of Petro’s “total peace” strategy, which seeks to end one of the world’s longest-running conflicts. Petro recognizes that the initiative did not achieve the expected result of disarming illegal networks, and his stance of keeping the door open to talk to all groups has been toughened. It has frozen negotiations with some groups due to ongoing violence, although it has maintained dialogue with other organizations.
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A clear division emerged between the candidates. On the one hand, there are those who advocate continuing dialogue with illegal groups, such as senator Iván Cepeda, from the Petro political movement. On the other, there are those who say they will dismantle this type of effort and prioritize military pressure, such as senator Paloma Valencia, from the opposition Democratic Center, and Abelardo de la Espriella, who declares himself an admirer of the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, and promised to toughen the fight against illegal armed groups.
Elizabeth Dickinson, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, believes the violence could worsen if a more hardline candidate is elected.
