Abelardo de la Espriella’s unexpected victory over Iván Cepeda on Sunday, in the first round of Colombia’s presidential election, shows that right‑wing voters are now almost entirely united behind the penal lawyer, while left‑wing voters are fully consolidated behind the senator. The 653,000‑vote margin the far-right candidate held over the senator seems small in an election where 24 million people cast a vote and more than 3 million voted for other candidates. The challenge for the runoff would appear to be persuading those voters — but given the candidates’ profiles and recent history, the path necessarily also runs through the mobilization of people who did not go to the polls on Sunday.

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When a Cuban person on the island wants to refer to “those in charge,” they lightly tap their shoulder with two fingers. The subtle gesture, shaped by nearly seven decades of censorship, is a reference to the epaulet of a military uniform. In Cuba, people do not speak of the government or the party (the Communist Party of Cuba, the only legal one), but rather of the “country’s leadership.” It is a euphemism that points to the real political and economic power: the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR).

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Since finding out that I’d be writing this article, every time I mentioned that 20 years have passed since the premiere of Marie Antoinette, people’s reaction has been the same. “It can’t have been that long ago,” they say, their faces full of terror and shock, whether they saw the film in theaters or are among those who have discovered it much after the fact via Tumblr, Pinterest or TikTok.

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