Pro-Trump candidate De la Espriella vows to crush Colombian crime

BOGOTA: Millionaire lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella, who calls himself “The Tiger” and campaigns as an outsider, has pledged to crack down on crime in Colombia if elected president in this weekend’s runoff vote.

US leader Donald Trump has endorsed the hard-right candidate who once called for the Colombian left to be “gutted,” a statement he later retracted.

The 47-year-old is running for office for the first time following a lucrative legal career representing drug-trafficking paramilitaries, fraudsters and soccer stars.

De la Espriella lived in Florence, Italy, where he dabbled in opera, jetted around in private planes and promoted his rum and wine businesses before launching his presidential bid.

He garnered over 43% of the vote against leftist Senator Ivan Cepeda’s 41% in the first round last month, and the pair will face each other in a runoff on Sunday.

“People who have created wealth during their lives” should run the country, De la Espriella told AFP, adding that he wants to reduce the size of state bureaucracy by 40%.

An admirer of Trump, Argentine President Javier Milei and El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, he proposes a military alliance with the US and Israel and the construction of mega-prisons, while also defending the right to carry weapons.

Megaprison detainees would be “ten stories underground” and survive on “bread and water,” the candidate said.

De la Espriella’s hot temper, penchant for swearing and frequent references to his own genitals have done nothing to dent his popularity.

Nor did two court rulings against his campaign — one banning his use of Colombia’s national jersey for political gain, and another outlawing national symbols including his characteristic military salute, the slogan “firm for the homeland” and the party name “defenders of the homeland.”

Both rulings have since been overturned.

Sporting impeccable suits and, more recently, a bulletproof vest, De la Espriella, like other candidates, has reported receiving death threats on the campaign trail.

He advocates an all-out return to war with Colombia’s guerrillas after the country’s first-ever leftist government’s attempts at dialogue with armed groups.

He also wants to dismantle the JEP, a Colombian court which hears the worst crimes of the country’s decades-long armed conflict.

The JEP was created by a historic peace accord with the now-defunct rebel army FARC in 2016 — an agreement De la Espriella views as a grave error.

The father of four claims he has the “balls” to crack down on the myriad armed groups operating in Colombia, the world’s biggest cocaine producer.

“Any criminal who does not surrender will be taken down as the law allows,” he told AFP in February.

In several online posts, De la Espriella has used artificial intelligence to transform himself into a sharp-fanged tiger.

Other photos he shares show him smoking tobacco or promoting his own businesses, one of which is a clothing brand called “De la Espriella Style.”

Influential former hardline president Alvaro Uribe endorsed De la Espriella after his own party’s candidate, Paloma Valencia, was decimated in the first round vote in May.

In February, the candidate said he had “a great friendship” with Uribe and that they spoke “almost every day.”

Having previously identified as an atheist, De la Espriella has changed his tune and now says that he lives “in accordance with Judeo-Christian principles.”

Colombia has no state religion, but Christianity holds strong sway among many voters.

The presidential hopeful told AFP that he wanted to carry out a “cultural counterrevolution” against leftist ideas so that the country could “return to God.”

He has described a childhood “in the style of Tom Sawyer,” fishing and playing in the Caribbean countryside.

In another interview, De la Espriella recalled entertaining himself as a young man by tying fireworks to cats. He later claimed the story was a joke.