“We are mobilizing to Bogotá. Here’s why.”

Potential threats to the integrity of Colombia's elections are already mounting. Following a formal request by the US chargé d’affaires, Colombia’s National Electoral Council (CNE) has accredited the US Embassy to bring an 86-member delegation to ‘monitor’ the election — a delegation that includes figures like Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno, who mocked President Gustavo Petro after the US sanctioned the president and his family, and others with well-documented hostility to Colombia’s progressive forces.

President Petro has himself stated publicly that factions of the US far-right are actively planning to intervene in the electoral process. At a cabinet meeting, Petro stated: "Far-right groups seek to isolate Colombia and interfere in elections, as they have done in 125 elections worldwide."

His concern arises in the context of a recent pattern of US electoral intervention across Latin America. In the November 2025 presidential election of Honduras, for example, Trump openly blackmailed and threatened the Honduran people via social media to advance his favored candidate — simultaneously pardoning a former Honduran president convicted by a US federal jury of conspiring to import tons of cocaine into the United States. 

Indeed, through a combination of tariffs, sanctions, and direct military operations, the Trump administration has systematically pressured governments across the region to align with its hemispheric interests — from Venezuela, Argentina, Ecuador, and beyond  — a posture formalized as the ‘Donroe Doctrine’ or the ‘Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.’ The Observatory regards this formally stated policy, combined with recent precedent, as a clear risk to Colombia’s electoral environment.

Colombia is slated to become the next major target of this Donroe Doctrine. Since 2022, the country’s first popular and openly progressive government has pursued historic structural reforms, including an ambitious energy transition, agrarian reform, labor reform, pension reform, drug policy reform, and struggles for free public university education and universal health care.

Its international positions have been equally consequential. At the 2023 UN climate conference, Colombia became the first significant oil-exporting nation to join the global alliance calling for a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty, while applying constant pressure for a reformed international financial architecture that keeps much of the developing world structurally constrained. 

Meanwhile, the President Petro’s government has advanced outspoken and material solidarity with the Palestinian people, presiding as a founding nation and current Co-Chair of The Hague Group. This diplomatic leadership has placed the political project in direct tension with Zionist interests — with decades-long histories of operation in Colombia — that have demonstrated technological and operational means to undermine the integrity of the upcoming election.

That is why the Progressive International is deploying to Bogotá, mobilizing a delegation of parliamentarians, jurists, and experienced electoral monitors drawn from across the world. This delegation will observe, monitor, and report on the integrity of Colombia’s electoral process with full independence and rigor. 

The stakes of this 2026 presidential election extend far beyond Colombia’s borders. Faced with a Latin American right wing emboldened by the reenergized imperialism of its Trumpist partner, these elections will set the course for democratic self-determination in Latin America in the pivotal years to come. Join us in our effort to safeguard against interference in Colombia — and support the delegation as we prepare to deploy.