Today’s briefing:
— Colombia’s massive election upset
— You can’t bring that on a British train
— Milan goes bullish
Your Insider’s briefing:
— Colombia’s massive election upset
— You can’t bring that on a British train
— Milan goes bullish
Good morning {{first_name | Intriguer}}. You walk in expecting a normal steak dinner but suddenly the lights are flashing, the Bomba Estéreo is pumping, tables are getting flipped into dance floors, and everyone’s screaming “arriba” before you can even wonder what happened to that sizzling Lomo al Trapo you ordered.
That’s a standard night at Colombia’s famous Andrés Carne de Res restaurant up in Chía.
And with the country of 54 million folks now waking to a shock first-round election win by an outsider calling himself El Tigre, something tells me those Andrés diners (happy or sad) might be chanting one Bomba Estéreo tune in particular: “Yo caí, me paré, caminé, me subí… ¡Soy yo!”, or “I fell, I got back up, I kept walking, I climbed higher… this is who I am!”
So steaks and tunes aside, shall we get you Colombia’s latest electoral plot-twist?
 | Managing Editor Jeremy Dicker |
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Number of the day
$150-160
That’s the price Brent crude could hit in the coming weeks per Exxon’s Neil Chapman, as oil inventories hit all-time lows. Futures traders, meanwhile, are still seemingly banking on a US-Iran deal.
Shifting tides.
Presidential hopeful Abelardo “The Lion” de la Espriella.
Nobody likes a told-you-so but (and brace yourself) we copped some angry strays when our 2026 prediction edition flagged that "Colombia’s hard-right firebrand Abelardo de la Espriella will crush Colombia’s May–June elections, capitalising on public fatigue".
We've dutifully kept you posted on the polls saying otherwise, but (sorry) we told you! So let's look at five key takeaways from Sunday's massive first-round upset, starting with...
The upset is real.
Abelardo de la Espriella, aka 'El Tigre' (The Tiger), is a celebrity lawyer with zero elected office experience. So his finish in first place (44%) is not just a shock to Colombia's incumbent left (41%), but also its establishment right (7%).
How? El Tigre can partly thank an establishment-right campaign that fizzled harder than a crisp can of Colombiana, leaving him as the only real option against the incumbent left.
He can also thank his years of chasing the spotlight via a famously aggressive style of litigation and rhetoric, hence that 'Tigre' nickname.
But he can also thank...
Security is the killer.
The outgoing president (Petro, who’s termed out) became Colombia's first leftist (and ex-guerrilla!) to win power in 2022, pledging 'total peace' via social programs and talks rather than endless fighting against the country’s armed groups.
But after four years, those groups have ~doubled in size, homicides just hit their worst quarter in a decade, and resurgent FARC/ELN splinters have displaced communities.
So with a sluggish economy and a sense armed groups were only getting stronger while the government just talked, voters wanted mano dura, and El Tigre was only too happy to oblige, aboard the...
Populist wave.
For a world that loves to distil humanity’s full complexity into a left-right binary, the "LatAm lurches right" headlines will write themselves here.
But for us, the left-right pendulum has increasingly looked like mere weather, while it’s populism that’s really been the bigger climate change story: whether left or right, voters are craving simple and decisive answers in an increasingly messy world.
That was true in 2022 when Petro pledged 'total peace' as the simple answer to decades of conflict, and it’s true with El Tigre instead pledging to now ‘stand firm for the homeland’. But…
The hard part starts now.
It's barely a month since President Petro's designated leftist successor (Senator Cepeda) was polling higher than the right's two candidates combined! But El Tigre, uniting the right, now seems the clear favourite for June 21st's run-off against Cepeda.
And yet, the road ahead also looks rough: President Petro has just declared, "I do not accept the results of the pre-count", blaming (without evidence) mystery new voters.
Then even if Petro changes his tune, El Tigre is still in for a rough ride: his party has one lawmaker in the house (out of 183!) and four in the senate (out of ~103!). So he's going to need some epic coalition-building and horse-trading to cash all the checks he's been writing, like pledging Bukele-style mega prisons and a Milei-style 40% cut in the state!
And yet…
Markets smell victory
As Monday’s sun rises over Colombia, watch for a stronger peso, easing bond yields, and a bounce in the COLCAP index — that's investors (agree or not) breathing a sigh of relief at the notion of a more business-friendly, pro-US, lower-tax-and-spend Bogotá ahead.
And investors might (like El Tigre himself) be taking some inspiration from the first leader to publicly congratulate El Tigre: Argentina’s right-libertarian Javier Milei likewise rode to power on a populist wave with minimal legislators, but he’s still reshaped his country.
Intrigue’s Take
Investors and voters alike might also be hoping El Tigre can repeat the successes of El Salvador’s President Bukele, whose mano dura somehow famously slashed homicides there by ~98%. But it’s worth keeping in mind…
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Intrigue’s Take
Investors and voters alike might also be hoping El Tigre can repeat the successes of El Salvador’s President Bukele, whose mano dura somehow famously slashed homicides there by ~98%. But it’s worth keeping in mind…
Colombia is 50 times bigger, has nine times the population, 12 times the borders, and 10 times the coastline. So it’s a tougher environment to secure against a criminal landscape that’s also more complex and sophisticated — we’re talking ~50 times as many groups fighting over an illicit economy 250-500 times larger!
So while any free citizen should wish any president of Colombia success in stabilising the security situation so its people can thrive, the reality is it’s a task that’s an order of magnitude beyond Bukele’s own formidable challenge in El Salvador. Still, El Tigre is banking that, with more US support, it’s the best (and only) option.
The other way to think about this is the fact that El Tigre is hardly the first guy to pledge mano dura, so it’s worth pondering what went wrong during earlier attempts, like under President Uribe’s ‘domestic security’ policy (2002-10) — he delivered real and early wins, slashing homicides by 50% and weakening the FARC, but still ended up hitting a familiar wall: with so much on the line, the groups adapted, splintered, and rebranded, while some of the government’s own paramilitaries joined the fray rather than fully disband.
Meanwhile, the ‘false positives’ scandal (killing innocents to meet crude milestones) eroded the government’s legitimacy, coca cultivation rebounded, and the underlying profit machine (cocaine) rebounded. So one lesson El Tigre will need to absorb is that tough security can suppress the violence for a while, but without choking the cash, dismantling the networks, and tackling demand (in the US and beyond), the cycle tends to return. And our gut is El Tigre will need more than a populist roar to break it.
Sound even smarter:
El Tigre has a record of filing aggressive defamation suits against journalists who criticise him — a trait that thrills his fans and alarms his critics.
The 52-year-old father of four has defended colourful characters in the courtroom, including Alex Saab, Maduro’s money man now in a US cell. He spins that experience as knowing how the system works. Sound familiar?
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Meanwhile, elsewhere…
🇮🇷 IRAN — The latest.
The regime has denied a rumour (amplified by opposition-aligned outlets) about Iran’s figurehead president tendering his resignation. Meanwhile, the US and Iran have again traded fire for the third time in a week, with the Americans claiming hits on Iranian radar sites, while Kuwait is reporting damage to a base hosting US troops. And… in weirder news, hackers have managed to breach the dormant Obama White House Instagram page to post pro-Iran propaganda! (France24)
🇨🇳 CHINA — New kid on the regulatory block.
Beijing has appointed Ding Xiangqun as chief of the National Financial Regulatory Administration (NFRA), China’s top financial regulator. (CNA)
Comment: A veteran banker rather than party apparatchik, this is a “safe hands” choice to signal that Xi is serious about stabilising China’s $70T finance sector, and maybe purging it, too (her predecessor was abruptly removed over unspecified violations).
🇦🇲 ARMENIA — EU should be careful.
Moscow has recalled its ambassador to Armenia in protest over Yerevan’s accelerating rapprochement with the EU. Once a Russian ally, Armenia has pivoted sharply toward Brussels since Putin failed to protect it during Azerbaijan’s 2023 takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh. (DW)
Comment: Facing the prospect of going down in history as the guy who squandered rather than rebuilt Russian influence in the region, Putin has responded in the way he knows best: by implicitly threatening a possible “Ukrainian scenario”.
🇲🇽 MEXICO — We are nobody’s piñata.
President Sheinbaum has used a big election anniversary rally to dunk on US meddling, framing DOJ indictments of top Mexican officials as attempts to destabilise her government rather than genuine anti-cartel cooperation. Her comments come days after Mexico’s senate approved a constitutional amendment adding ‘foreign interference’ to the list of grounds to annul an election. (Guardian)
Comment: While supporters claim the amendment fills a legislative gap, critics are worried it could help veto elections on flimsy grounds. Just as notable for us is the shift away from Sheinbaum’s trademark calm towards Trump 2.0: it’s partly about holding her party together amid US pressure, and partly about answering criticism from among her base that she’s been too soft.
🇦🇺 AUSTRALIA — AUKUS part 2?
Treaty allies the UK, US, and Australia have used the sidelines of the Shangri La Dialogue in Singapore to ink a deal for new joint underwater drones that’ll patrol undersea cables. It’s part of their trilateral AUKUS defence tech pact, which will also now see Australia get three used (rather than new) US Virginia-class subs. (BBC)
Comment: The Brits and Aussies will read all this as welcome proof that DC remains invested in AUKUS, even if the goalposts (new vs old) keep shifting. The other notable aspect from this year’s Shangri La Dialogue might be what *didn’t* happen: China’s defence minister skipped the event altogether for the second year running, while America’s Pete Hegseth made zero mention of Taiwan in his keynote. Both absences could be two sides of the same coin: a tactical stabilising in US-China ties.
🇮🇹 ITALY — Energising.
Rome is now pushing to “Italianize“ the international unit for electric potential from ‘volt’ to ‘volta’ in honour of Italian physicist Alessandro Volta, whose pioneering work first inspired the name. (Politico)
Comment: When governments start pulling these stops, it’s often an attempt to re-energise (🥁) their base — Meloni’s approval ratings have softened lately.
🇲🇦 MOROCCO — Africa’s new industrial leader.
According to the African Development Bank, Morocco has now surpassed South Africa as the continent’s most industrialised economy for the first time. It partly reflects Morocco’s industrial upgrades and export diversification, but also South Africa’s struggles with power outages, corruption, and political instability. (Al Jazeera)
Extra Intrigue
🤣 Your weekly round-up of the world’s lighter news
The ‘hot priests’ in a popular Roman souvenir calendar are not actually priests.
A Paris Saint-Germain fan has flown to Bucharest instead of Budapest.
A United flight to Spain has pulled an emergency U-turn after a teen named his Bluetooth speaker ‘bomb’.
A British railway has asked politely for festivalgoers to stop taking beer-filled wheelie bins on board.
And China’s netizens are amused by DC’s proposal to put Trump’s likeness on a $250 commemorative bill, as the number sounds similar to a ‘fool’ insult.
Restoration of the day
The bull in question. Credits: Loremipsum/ Marco Granelli via Facebook
Art restoration is a high-octane career in Italy.
We already briefed you on the earlier scandal after an artist depicted Prime Minister Meloni as an angel in a Roman church fresco, but there’s now a fresh controversy brewing.
Milan’s Vittorio Emanuele shopping gallery is elegantly paved with colourful mosaics, like the above bull representing the city of Turin. Legend has it, spinning your heel three times on the animal’s private parts will bring you good luck, though not for the bull, which eventually ended up with a small crater instead.
So a restoration has now returned the bull to its (near) former glory, though netizens couldn’t help pointing out the animal is now (ahem) less of a bull and more of a steer?
Today’s poll
What do you think Colombia's next president should focus on first?
Thursday’s poll: Do you think the US will intervene in Bolivia?
💥 Yes, there's too much on the line (13%)
👎 No, DC is busy elsewhere (85%)
✍️ Other (write in!) (2%)
Your two cents:
👎 J.L: “Our attention span lasts five minutes, and apparently, "Cuba's next" anyway.”
💥 P.F: “ I don't expect military intervention but I do expect clandestine and financial intervention.”
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