Colombia: What happens after election?

Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) is “hopeful” that a new Colombian government will restore protections for religious leaders and work to improve the nation’s increasingly precarious humanitarian predicament following the upcoming presidential election.

The organisation has called upon the government to restore previously held protections to religious leaders due to their increased susceptibility to attack by armed insurgents, which featured their inclusion on a list of vulnerable populations, enabling them to access means of official security, such as protection programmes. The armed insurgency in Colombia is a complex, low-intensity conflict driven by splinter groups, drug trafficking, and territorial control by three groups including two guerrilla organisations and a narcotics cartel.

Legislative changes imposed by the existing regime in 2023 removed these provisions, leaving leaders, including pastors, vulnerable to attack. Eleven leaders have been killed or kidnapped since December 2024, which CSW’s Head of Advocacy and Americas Team Leader Anna Lee Stangl believes proves the government’s decision to have been “inexplicable”, whatever the rationale behind it was. However, she is optimistic that new leaders will engage with their concerns, with President Gustavo Petro constitutionally prohibited from seeking another term.

She told en: “[With] the inauguration of a new president this summer, we hope that a show of international support for protections for religious leaders in Colombia will motivate the incoming presidential administration to reinstall religious leaders on the list of people eligible for special protection measures.

“Unlike in some of the countries we work in, the government of Colombia has in the past been willing to engage with us, and we believe that whoever wins the next election will have a genuine interest in bringing about peace in the country. We are hopeful that they will hear our concerns and see that what we are calling for is an important part of achieving that.”

Discussing the likelihood of positive change, Stangl said: “It is impossible to predict whether the next president will be able to make significant progress. However, there is broad recognition across the country that the conflict cannot continue indefinitely, and we hope that the next administration will take meaningful steps to protect the vulnerable in their work attempting to transform their communities and reduce violence.”

*Photo caption: The National Liberation Army (ELN) in Colombia advocates “a composite Catholic communist ideology of Marxism–Leninism, Camilism and Latin American liberation theology,” says Wikipedia.