Vicky Dávila 2026?
Final part of a series on Vicky Dávila. Today: the consolidation of her presidential candidacy through Semana, her exit from Semana as her unofficial campaign launch and her prospects for 2026.
This is the final part of a series about Vicky Dávila, the journalist-turned-early right-wing presidential favourite. You can read part one here and part two here. Vicky Dávila resigned as director of Semana magazine on November 16, the first step in an explicit presidential candidacy.
Part three discusses the consolidation of her presidential candidacy through Semana, her exit from Semana as her unofficial campaign launch and the prospects for her in 2026.
Campaigning through Semana
In May 2024, the Vicky 2026 campaign via Semana reached another level with her ‘10-10-10’ tax plan (10% VAT, 10% corporate tax, 10% income tax), cheaply plagiarized from Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan in 2012. Vicky Dávila’s 10-10-10, as she branded it, later made the front page of Semana’s print edition. In a tone undistinguishable from a generic politician presenting their tax plan, Dávila sold her catchy slogan arguing it’d simplify the tax system, help workers and small and medium-sized businesses, and get rid of all tax breaks and exemptions. When challenged by other journalists about her ambiguity (journalist or candidate), she retorted that nobody cared when Semana (and most of the media) publicly endorsed the ‘yes’ in the 2016 plebiscite. Regardless of the journalistic ethics, Vicky’s 10-10-10 achieved its objective: her opinion became the news, and everybody (including, of course, Petro) talked about it.
Her unofficial campaign, all while remaining editorial director, continued unabated. In late June, in a Semana-branded video, she warned of dark, difficult times ahead and called on everyone to understand the gravity of the moment, “to resist, to act and to defend democracy”. Shortly afterwards, she predicted that ‘the horrible night’ would end on August 7, 2026 (the inauguration of the next president), at which time Colombians will “dream again, hatreds will end and there will be opportunities for all.” Definitely not a campaign speech…
Speaking before the bankers’ convention in June, Dávila, despite saying that she wasn’t a politician, spoke like one for half an hour, launching into an aggressive attack on the government—accusing it of ‘political terrorism’, weakening the military, endangering journalist and of seeking to “morally assassinate critics, the opposition and journalists.” Her speech was widely publicized by Semana and rattled certain members of the government, like ambassador Roy Barreras who criticized her for using the venue for a ‘diatribe of hatred and venom.’ Again, when other journalists like Blu Radio’s Camila Zuluaga asked her to clarify the ambiguity around a potential candidacy, Vicky went on the offence, accusing her of being envious.
In August, Semana commissioned a 2026 poll with Vicky as a candidate. She led in various matchups, including runoff scenarios. While the poll was made public, it curiously wasn’t published in Semana (which usually loves overanalyzing polls to death).
In late August, under the mantle of Semana, Vicky Dávila kicked off a tour of over 30 cities called Semana por Colombia or Vicky por Colombia. She said she’d travel to different regions to “better understand their challenges, and make their achievements visible.” While these sorts of forums are an old part of Semana’s business model, even before it was bought by Gilinski, they have never been centered around the person of the magazine’s director. This tour obviously has a very strong whiff of a (pre-)presidential campaign. Regional tours are usually among the first steps taken by presidential candidates.
The tour began on August 28 in Medellín, the bastion of the Colombian right and unofficial capital of the right-wing resistance to Petro. Adding to the controversy, the event, held at EAFIT University, was funded by Comfama (a family compensation fund), EPM (the public utilities company owned by the municipality), the metropolitan area and the municipality of Medellín (i.e. right-wing mayor, and former Semana contributor, Fico Gutiérrez)—that is, an event of a potential presidential candidate paid for with public funds.
The event in Medellín, streamed live on Semana, was headlined by Vicky and her old friend Fico. Still claiming to be a journalist (but “not indifferent”), she spoke like a candidate, with lines like “we’ll get out of this, united”, “we have what it takes to get ahead” or “those who want to destroy this country will be left wanting!” The other speakers, notably Fico, attacked Petro while praising Antioquia’s entrepreneurial spirit and Medellín’s achievements. In Medellín, Vicky found a potential key ally in Fico, the right’s candidate in 2022 who has announced he wouldn’t run in 2026, and reconciled with the GEA. The audience knew what the event was really about, and loved it: some attendees chanted Vicky, presidenta.
The tour continued in Cali (October 2) and Bucaramanga (October 10), again with the support of the municipalities and departments. In Cali, she was joined on stage by centre-right mayor Alejandro Eder and in Bucaramanga by right-wing mayor Jaime Andrés Beltrán (who was compared to Nayib Bukele during his 2023 campaign). The ‘discussion forums’ still had all the obvious trappings of a campaign event: Vicky Dávila spoke like a candidate, about the ‘choices’ that will be made in 2026, and sung to the rhythm of the tiple (a traditional string instrument of the Andean region).
The darling of the right
The event in Medellín showcased Vicky Dávila’s popularity and star power, and her status as the new darling of the Colombian right.
Since its brutal defeat in 2022, in the wake of Iván Duque’s unpopular presidency, the right has had trouble reinventing itself and finding strong leadership. It’s been united and bolstered by an intense hatred of Petro and has benefited from his unpopularity, but no strong leaders have emerged and their strategy beyond hating Petro is unclear and unsettled. In a leadership vacuum and amidst dozens of politicians competing for power, Vicky Dávila has become the right’s strongest contender for 2026 (for now) and the unofficial leader of the opposition. She perfectly expresses, and amplifies, the right’s main narratives against Petro, and does so in a combative, irreverent and confident tone that appeals to the right-wing electorate. As María Jimena Duzán wrote in her column, Dávila “captured the passion and devotion of this sector that hates the president” and “knows better than anyone how to exacerbate the feelings of the average Colombian.”
Besides Dávila, however, there’s no shortage of presidential hopefuls on the right. Five uribista senators have already declared their candidacies: María Fernanda Cabal (the far-right Trumpian/Bolsonarist firebrand), Paola Holguín, Paloma Valencia, Andrés Guerra and Miguel Uribe Turbay. Outside uribismo, there are plenty of other possible right/centre-right candidates: CR senator David Luna, former finance minister Mauricio Cárdenas, former Antioquia governor Aníbal Gaviria, Duque’s last interior minister Daniel Palacios, former AG Francisco Barbosa and maybe even former vice president Germán Vargas Lleras. Vicky Dávila’s popularity is awkward and uncomfortable for them. They can’t criticize her publicly, and they’re at the mercy of Semana, but most don’t want to quietly step aside if she does run. For now, some of them, like Paloma Valencia, have invited Vicky to participate in an open right-wing primary in March 2026, measuring up against the uribista candidate and other right-wing candidates, to become the single candidate of the right.
Vicky Dávila started taking shots at potential right-wing rivals, starting with Miguel Uribe, seen as the easiest target (a somewhat clumsy rich kid and delfín—grandson of a former president—who hasn’t ‘earned’ his spot). After Miguel Uribe released a pre-campaign video extolling the values of hard work and waking up early, echoing Uribe’s old refrain of trabajar, trabajar y trabajar, she replied that while Colombians don’t want the continuation of petrismo they also don’t want to ‘return to the past’. In November, after Miguel Uribe paid for a poll that showed him as the strongest uribista candidate (a clear outlier), Semana devoted several articles to it—describing its result as implausible, noting that it was paid for by businessmen, and relaying Cabal and Valencia’s attacks on Uribe for the poll (claiming it was unethical).
Posing as a self-made, talented and independent journalist, Vicky Dávila is positioning herself as an outsider, with no partisan ties and often critical of the old political class and the ‘establishment’ (but in reality friendly with it). In her speeches, she’s increasingly attacked politicians who don’t keep their promises and govern to enrich their inner circle and friendly contractors, and about the need to ‘declare war on corruption’, which she says is a ‘transversal fight’ with no ideology. She includes traditional right-wing themes in her rhetoric: small government, freedom, family values, law and order. Vicky Dávila and Semana have sung the praises of the new icons of the Colombian right: Nayib Bukele, Javier Milei and Donald Trump.
She’ll aim to take the ‘right-wing populist outsider’ road opened up by Rodolfo Hernández in 2022. Unlike Rodolfo, however, she isn’t really an ‘outsider’: she worked for a media outlet owned by the scions of one of the wealthiest families in Colombia, and has friendly ties to uribismo and other right-wing politicians.
The exit and campaign launch
As discussed in the last post, there’s been a lot of debate about the ethics of a journalist and director of a major media outlet moonlighting as a presidential candidate. Given her increasingly blatant and all-but-explicit campaigning, Vicky Dávila was under increasing pressure to finally resolve that ambiguity: is she a candidate, or is she a journalist?
In an interview on Duzán’s podcast, Gabriel Gilinski said that Vicky Dávila would need to resign as director of Semana if she were to be a candidate. At the same time, he claimed that he didn’t know of her potential presidential candidacy until he read Duzán’s column, which seems hard to believe.
Legally, she was under no obligation to clarify the ambiguity for a while. If she runs as an independent candidate, obtaining ballot access by gathering signatures, she’d have to present the required signatures by mid-December 2025 (after having previously registered a committee to collect signatures at least a month before that). She could easily have kept the suspense going until mid-2025.
On November 14, Blu Radio broke the news that Vicky Dávila would resign from Semana “in the coming months” to run for president. With the cat out of the bag, Vicky Dávila announced her exit two days later. Her resignation, in the form of a long ‘my letter to Colombians’ was published as the cover of the print edition.
In her ‘letter to the people’, she depicts herself as simple woman from a humble family who has gotten to where she is, overcoming adversities, thanks to hard work, self-confidence and values, and who says what she thinks and does what she says. From her perspective, she recounts her career as a journalist, committed to the truth and holding politicians accountable. She puts herself in a front row seat to major events in recent Colombian history: the horrors of war, peace negotiations since the Caguán or ‘bringing to light’ the Odebrecht scandal. From her experience, she claims to know the “best and the worst of politicians” and how corrupt politicians operate, what deals they make and how far they’re able to go to achieve their goals of money and power. She takes credit for uncovering recent scandals, starting with the petrovideos in 2022, followed by the main scandals of the Petro presidency. She poses as an heroic figure, who despite many sleepless nights thinking about what to do, did what needed to be done and ensured that the ‘truth’ came out (she makes sure to note that she rejects the title heroine, but does believe that she’s a citizen and journalist who did her duty).
Her ‘letter to the people’ doesn’t explicitly announce her presidential candidacy, but it’s clearly the first step (or the latest step) towards one. One common theme in her letter is a generic call for unity: “Colombia will only heal and progress if we are together, leaving behind selfishness and resentment,” “today we need a country that, united, seeks opportunities for everyone.” She attacks the left as destructive, says that politics need to be reset, that the president must be nothing more than an employee of the people and that political priorities must be equated with the needs of the people.
In the letter’s final paragraph, she asks readers to see her not through “the understandable eyes of journalism, but through the critical eyes of someone who tries to get involved in generating positive change in our beloved country.” Like a politician finishing a speech, she promises to never let them down (nunca los voy a defraudar) and thanks God for everything.
Vicky Dávila’s exit/campaign launch came unexpectedly early, although the ambiguity of her position in the face of such intense speculation had become quite untenable. There are several conflicting versions of whether or not she was pushed to announce her exit earlier than she would have wanted, some of them involving rumours of a small conflict or falling-out with the owners of Semana, the Gilinski family. Perhaps she’d have preferred waiting longer and jumping into the race later. However, the 2026 campaign has begun very early and waiting until 2025 may no longer have been possible.
Prospects for 2026
Her exit/campaign launch seems to have been timed. On the one hand, she may be seeking to ride the conservative momentum generated by Donald Trump’s victory, which right-wing politicians around the Americas are trying to jump on. Her ‘letter’ also came out on the same day as the uribista Centro Democrático (CD) held their first forum with their five pre-candidates, in Barranquilla. Vicky Dávila’s announcement sucked out all the attention away from the CD’s event, which can’t be a coincidence, given that her first challenge as a candidate will be imposing herself on the right.
She has now jumped in earnest in the political arena, without the ‘protection’ of Semana (but, for the moment, with the continued positive coverage of her actions by Semana). She is more exposed to attacks from other right-wing presidential hopefuls, who until now had been reluctant to explicitly attack her given her popularity on the right. In her first moves as an undeclared candidate, she has started going after her first rivals on the right. With phony politeness, she pointed out that Paloma Valencia—one of the main contenders for uribismo—has been in politics for many years and that her grandfather (former Conservative president Guillermo León Valencia, 1962-1966) was a lifelong politician, and that old politicians won’t solve any problems. Defining herself as an ‘anti-politics’ outsider and reproaching Valencia for attending the Liberal Party’s convention as an invited guest, Dávila declared that she doesn’t want to learn politics and above all she doesn’t want to learn to steal and make deals with politiqueros. In a later tweet, Dávila said that unity isn’t between or with corrupt politicians. In another tweet, responding to a follower, Dávila emphasized her new ‘anti-politics’ message, claiming that the 2026 election must be against the traditional political class and corruption.
Her anti-politics message and heroic portrayal as a journalist who has held crooked politicians accountable leaves out the part where she’s been quite cozy with many of these same politicians and powerful elites for much of her career. As left-wingers are keen to bring up, Dávila is married to José Amiro Gnecco, the brother of Partido de la U senator José Alfredo Gnecco, member of the most powerful political clans in the Cesar department that’s been implicated in an innumerable number of scandals and criminal activities. Claudia López made sure to mention that family connection in a tweet in February, calling her “Vicky Dávila de Gnecco” and describing her as the candidate who starts off with a ‘regional clan’ behind her.
Vicky Dávila’s first priority will be to impose herself on the right, against a crowded field and many big-name candidates who won’t quietly fade away on their own terms. According to Blu Radio, she should (unsurprisingly) seek ballot access by collecting signatures (firmas), as an ‘independent’, a process that’ll begin in the second half of 2025 to conclude by December 2025. The potential next step may be to participate in a big right-wing primary in March 2026, on the same day as the congressional elections, against the candidates that’ll have been selected by the CD, Cambio Radical and the Conservatives (and other right-wing independents). Of course, Vicky Dávila hasn’t said anything about her intentions that far out, but she is obviously thinking about it. Between now and March 2026, she will face off against much more experienced politicians on the right. For now, the current political climate, the continued gradual decline of Álvaro Uribe’s relevance as the unifying caudillo of the Colombian right, the accompanying crisis of leadership on the right and the pervasive ‘anti-politics’ mood that already defined 2022, all plays in her favour.
Today, she appears to be one of the early frontrunners and the right’s early favourite. That’s not necessarily a good thing: early frontrunners fade out, lose their shine and get overtaken by others. Recent Colombian presidential elections are a graveyard of candidates who didn’t even make it to any ballot—overinflated egos who refused to understand that they didn’t have a chance, others who flamed out or peaked too early. Polls over a year out from the election have poor predictive value, especially in Colombia. It is very hard to sustain an early lead, particularly in what will be an extremely crowded field.
The 2026 election is only just beginning. Buckle up.