Colombia will hold a presidential and vice presidential election on Sunday, with no candidate expected to secure more than 50% of the vote, triggering a runoff between the top two contenders on June 21. An AtlasIntel poll based on 4,531 interviews shows Senator Iván Cepeda leading the first round with 38.7% support, followed closely by Abelardo de la Espriella at 37.3% and right-wing Senator Paloma Valencia at 14.3%.

Cepeda, a senator and presidential candidate, has promoted negotiations with guerillas and cartels and rejected “any attempt by armed groups to pressure the electorate in one way or another, whether actions that go against, or supposedly in favor of our campaign.” His opponents have accused him of ties to the FARC guerilla, which he denies. De la Espriella, by contrast, proposes ending all negotiations with drug traffickers, bombing their encampments, resuming aerial fumigation of coca fields with glyphosate, and building 10 maximum-security private megaprisons in remote areas where inmates would work for their meals.

Security ranks as voters’ second-greatest concern after healthcare. Human rights organizations have documented more than 50 massacres in Colombia this year, and clashes between guerilla factions recently left around 50 people dead. Observers have also documented voter intimidation by armed groups in rural areas. Last year, Colombia’s most powerful drug lord threatened violence ahead of the election, warning against “advancing warmongering sectors,” a reference presumed to target right-leaning hardliners.

De la Espriella has drawn criticism for using pyrotechnic props at campaign events and engaging in perceived disrespectful clashes with female journalists. Valencia, who advocates increasing ground troops and drone surveillance alongside aerial fumigation, dismissed his tactics as those of a “circus.” Daniel Mejía, a professor who studies drug policy at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, described Cepeda as having a “soft hand on not only coca cultivation, but also of organized criminal groups that are in charge of the production of cocaine.” He called Valencia’s approach more “balanced,” saying he believes she would have a “soft hand on coca farmers but a very strong hand on drug trafficking organizations and illegal armed groups.” Business owners in Colombia, meanwhile, are watching closely after absorbing the largest minimum wage increase in decades, awaiting whether the next government will reverse or expand the policy.