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First modification: 04/28/2026 - 18:49

More than 20 attacks registered in 48 hours reflect an uptick in violence in Colombia, in a context marked by the electoral campaign. This scenario raises questions about the security conditions in the country and its possible impact on the legitimacy of the 2026 elections. We analyze it in El Debate de France 24.

Explosions, rifle rounds and attacks against police stations and commercial establishments marked an especially violent weekend in Colombia. According to the Attorney General's Office, more than 20 attacks were recorded in different parts of the country.

The most serious event occurred on the Pan-American Highway, where an explosive device hit a bus, leaving at least 20 dead and dozens injured. The authorities attribute the attack to dissidents of the extinct FARC that did not adhere to the 2016 Peace Agreements. In this context, alerts are growing about possible pressure and intimidation against candidates, in the midst of an increasingly tense political climate.

Read alsoEscalation of attacks in Colombia: how much are tensions increasing weeks before the elections?

To what extent can this escalation affect the security and legitimacy of the 2026 elections? We analyzed it in El Debate on France 24.

Carlos Augusto Chacón, a specialist in national security and defense, describes these events as “the result of the total peace policy, which would have generated perverse incentives for the growth of criminal groups.”

Along similar lines, political analyst Omar Bula Escobar maintains that "what we see is, in reality, the opposite of the main objective, which is peace. We have been in dialogue and negotiations for 13 years, and the balance is worrying: what fuels war has increased."

"The United Nations figures are clear: we went from 48,000 hectares in 2012 to 96,000 at the end of the peace process, and then to 250,000," says Bula.

Read alsoConflict over land, violence and hope: the Cauca factor in the Colombian presidential elections

Faced with the violent events of the weekend, Pastor Alape, signatory of the Peace Agreement and coordinator of its implementation by the Comunes Party, maintains that the State has not achieved a comprehensive presence in the territories.

"What we see is that the State has not arrived in a comprehensive manner. It is not just about the Military Forces, but about the entire institutional framework: Prosecutor's Office, Ombudsman's Office, Attorney's Office. It is the State as a whole that must turn itself in, as stated in the 2016 Agreement."

"These actions do not respond to armed political expression, but to dynamics of illegal economies such as drug trafficking, illegal mining and extortion," says Alape.

According to the Peace signer, the objective is clear: affect the civilian population, generate instability and produce a crisis in an electoral context.

Without a doubt, a scenario that reveals the fragility of the context in which the presidential elections are taking place in Colombia, a country whose history of political violence continues to mark the present.

They accompany us in the analysis:

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