ELN Declares Election Ceasefire as Colombia’s Runoff Election Faces Voter Coercion

Colombia’s presidential runoff campaign entered its final week under the shadow of security concerns, with the country’s largest remaining guerrilla group announcing a temporary ceasefire while opposition allies filed a criminal complaint alleging armed groups may have influenced first-round voting.

The National Liberation Army (ELN) said it would suspend offensive operations between June 20 and June 23 to guarantee citizens’ right to vote in the June 21 presidential election. According to a statement issued by the guerrilla group’s national leadership, fighters have been instructed not to carry out military actions against state security forces during that period.

The announcement comes as the highly polarized contest between conservative candidate Abelardo de la Espriella and leftist Iván Cepeda has increasingly focused on questions of electoral integrity and security in conflict-affected regions.

Meanwhile, Defensores de la Patria, a movement supporting De la Espriella’s candidacy, said it had filed a complaint with Colombia’s Attorney General’s Office requesting an investigation into possible voter coercion in areas where illegal armed groups maintain influence.

The legal action, submitted by constitutional lawyer Germán Calderón España, relies on an electoral analysis by former senator Rodrigo Lara Restrepo that compared first-round results with municipalities identified by Colombia’s Ombudsman’s Office as facing elevated electoral risks due to the presence of armed groups.

According to the complaint, Cepeda secured more than 70% of the vote in 109 municipalities across the departments of Cauca, Chocó and Nariño. The movement argues that 100 of those municipalities overlap with areas previously flagged by authorities as vulnerable to electoral interference by illegal armed organizations. In some localities, support for Cepeda exceeded 97% of the vote.

Defensores de la Patria alleges the results warrant an investigation into what Colombian political commentators have termed “voto fusil” — or “shotgun voting” — referring to alleged voting under threat or coercion by armed actors.

However, separate analyses have urged caution in interpreting the data.

The digital publication La Silla Vacía found that while Cepeda performed more strongly in municipalities affected by armed conflict, much of that trend mirrored historical voting patterns observed during President Gustavo Petro’s electoral victories. The outlet reported that statistical anomalies appeared concentrated in a relatively small number of polling stations.

According to an invetigation, 334 polling tables exhibited unusual voting patterns favouring Cepeda, involving approximately 25,000 votes — equivalent to around 0.3% of his first-round total. The publication noted that while the figures merited scrutiny, they would likely prove decisive only in an exceptionally close runoff.

The debate over electoral conditions has intensified amid growing concerns about political violence.

Colombia’s Ombudsman’s Office had previously issued warnings covering hundreds of municipalities considered at risk because of the activities of illegal armed groups. Regional officials have also raised alarms over reports of threats directed at local communities ahead of the vote.

The runoff follows months of heightened political tensions, including attacks against campaign figures and mounting accusations between rival political camps over the influence of armed organizations in remote areas of the country.

For Cepeda’s supporters, allegations of systematic coercion amount to an effort to delegitimize the left’s electoral gains among historically marginalized populations. The expansion of armed groups under Petro’s “Total Peace” strategy has also created conditions that could undermine free participation in the election process by vulnerable Colombins in rural areas of Cauca, Nariño, Putumayo, and Valle del Cauca.

The Attorney General’s Office has not publicly announced whether it has opened a formal investigation into the claims by the front-running candidate and criminal defense attorney De La Espriella.