On Sunday, Gustavo Petro won Colombia’s presidential election with 50.4 percent of the vote, defeating his opponent Rodolfo Hernández, who garnered 47.3 percent of votes.
Gustavo Petro won the presidency. However, it should be well understood that a significant portion of the country did not want him to become president. This result does not give the new president a clear mandate to execute their policy without at least trying to address concerns from the other side.
Now that the celebrations are over, Colombia’s new left-wing president faces a mountain of challenges. His biggest challenge will be delivering on his promises.
Hernandez’s campaign’s narrative cannot be “change vs. continuity.” Instead, he must propose a model of change that is different from Petro’s.
Last week, Colombian kingpin Dairo Antonio Úsuga, better known as Otoniel, was extradited to the United States, where he will face drug- and arms-trafficking charges in the Southern District Court of Florida. The 50-year-old Otoniel has been involved in crime since he was an adolescent, as a member of both the left-wing Ejército Popular del Pueblo (EPL) and the right-wing Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC).
With the Biden administration enjoying a more productive relationship with the AMLO administration than its predecessor, now is the time for President Biden to sign an MNNA agreement.
The next government must see the Orange Economy as an opportunity to boost the cultural sector’s productivity, stimulate creative infrastructure, and promote sustainability to empower local creative producers; not as Iván Duque’s legacy project.
Last Sunday, Colombians went to the polls to participate in parliamentary and presidential primary elections. Gustavo Petro won the leftwing Pacto Histórico primary with 4.4 million votes, the most in Colombian primary history.
Will Colombia seize the moment and produce copper, or will it stand idly by and buy it at market prices later?
