Gustavo Petro

Gustavo Petro (born April 19, 1960, Ciénaga de Oro, Colombia) is a Colombian politician and former member of the Marxist guerrilla group 19th of April Movement (M-19) who in 2022 became the first leftist to serve as the president of Colombia.

Early life and M-19 membership

Likely of Italian or Roma heritage, Petro was born in Ciénaga de Oro, a small town in a cattle- and cotton-raising region of the state of Cordoba in northwestern Colombia. After his family relocated, he grew up about 50 km (30 miles) northeast of Bogotá in the salt-mining town of Zipaquirá, Cundinamarca, where he witnessed poverty that would have a lifelong impact on him, as would his early exposure to labour organizers, who helped shape what would become his leftist worldview. As a boy, he enjoyed reading biographies and aspired to write a crime novel. He also became an admirer of Nobel Prize-winning novelist Gabriel García Márquez, who for a time had attended the Catholic school at which Petro received his early education, Colegio Nacional de La Salle, in Zipaquirá.

At age 17, while studying economics at Externado University of Colombia in Bogotá, Petro was recruited by the 19th of April Movement (M-19), a Marxist guerrilla group that took its name from the date on which the group argued that the 1970 Colombian presidential election had been “stolen.” The group often resorted to audacious militant actions, including the kidnapping and murder of a labour leader in 1976, a raid on a Bogotá arsenal in 1979, and the kidnapping of cocktail-party guests at the Bogotá embassy of the Dominican Republic in 1980. Although Petro has been associated with these violent actions, fellow M-19 members emphasized instead the role that Petro played in community work and creating propaganda. In 1981, at age 21, he was elected ombudsman of Zipaquira, and in 1984, at age 24, he was elected to the city council. Nevertheless, he adopted the nom de guerre Aureliano—borrowed from a character in Marquez’s novel One Hundred Years of Solitude—and his main job with the M-19 was stockpiling stolen weapons.

In October 1985, while disguised as a woman, Petro was arrested and incarcerated after he was found to be in possession of firearms, homemade explosives, and propaganda. Some three weeks later, while Petro was still behind bars, the M-19 undertook its most notorious operation: an invasion of the Palace of Justice in Bogotá, where it took scores of hostages. In the subsequent military assault on the building, some 100 people were killed, including half of Colombia’s Supreme Court judges. In March 1987 Petro was released from confinement, and he helped promote peace talks between the M-19 and the Colombian government. In 1990 he demobilized along with the rest of the M-19 after negotiations with Colombian Pres. Virgilio Barco led to amnesty for members of the group, which then transformed into a legitimate political party, Alianza Democrática M-19.

Political career

Petro was elected to a seat in the Colombian House of Representatives in 1991 as a member of Alianza Democrática M-19. When his life was threatened, Petro fled Colombia in 1994, accepting a position as a diplomatic attaché in Brussels, where he remained until 1996. During his tenure in Belgium he did coursework in environment and population studies at the Catholic University of Leuven (he had already earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in economics from Externado University of Colombia and Javeriana University, respectively). Returning to Colombia, he was reelected to the House of Representatives in 1998 and returned to office in 2002.

In 2006 Petro entered the Senate. As a senator, he became an even more prominent critic of Pres. Álvaro Uribe than he had been as a member of the lower chamber. Notably, Petro alleged that politicians, members of the security forces, and Uribe’s brother Santiago had connections with right-wing death squads and drug trafficking. Prompted by the growing popular support that he had earned in response to his opposition to Uribe and advocacy of constitutional reform, Petro made a run for the presidency in 2010 but came up short, finishing fourth.

Two years later he began a controversial term (2012–15) as Bogotá’s mayor. Petro introduced a number of successful social programs—including subsidized water rates and bus fares for disadvantaged citizens—and in the process he reduced Bogotá’s debt, crime, and poverty. However, his effort to reorganize garbage collection in the city proved disastrous, leading not only to mounds of trash in the streets but also to Petro’s removal from office by the attorney general’s office in 2013. An appeal to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights resulted in Petro’s reinstatement as mayor in 2014. Moreover, a ban on him holding public office for 15 years was also rescinded. The whole episode served to enhance Petro’s status with leftists.

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In 2018 Petro again ran for president. This time he advanced to a second-round runoff with Iván Duque, who triumphed by garnering some 54 percent of vote, compared with about 42 percent for Petro. As the runner-up, per Colombian election law, Petro was awarded a Senate seat.

The 2022 Colombian presidential election

As Petro positioned himself for another campaign for the presidency, his progressive vision for the country gained increasing international attention. Despite his image as an unabashed leftist, Petro argued that the terms “left-wing” and “right-wing” had become obsolete in the 21st century, in which the political choice was between the “politics of life,” rooted in defense of the environment, and the “politics of death,” doomed by economic reliance on fossil fuel extraction. Petro advocated creating a greener economy for Colombia by phasing out the country’s traditional dependence on oil extraction and coal mining and replacing them with an emphasis on tourism and knowledge-based industries. Environmentalists were cheered by his promise to protect the Amazon Rainforest; foreign business interests were agitated by his pledge to halt oil exploration. Similarly, progressives praised Petro’s intention of leveling the economic playing field by raising taxes on the wealthy to fund antipoverty programs, whereas conservatives predicted that Petro’s proposed changes would lead Colombia down the path to Cuban- and Venezuelan-style socialism.

In March 2022, when Colombia’s principal political coalitions held the “consultations” that serve as the country’s primary elections, the leftist Historic Pact for Colombia (Pacto Histórico por Colombia) overwhelmingly chose Petro as its presidential candidate, handing him more than 80 percent of the coalition’s consultation vote. As the election proper approached, Petro softened some of his rhetoric and rolled back some policy promises. On May 29 he finished at the head of a six-candidate field in the first round of voting with slightly more than 40 percent of the ballots cast. Populist millionaire Rodolfo Hernández finished second with 28 percent. Because neither candidate had reached the 50 percent level needed to preclude a runoff, a rematch was set for June. Petro stood to be the first leftist ever elected as Colombia’s president. That two distinctly nontraditional candidates were the survivors of the first round likely was a consequence of the widespread disenchantment with Colombia’s growing income-inequality gap, which earlier had led to violent demonstrations. As conservative support coalesced for Hernández’s candidacy, political pundits predicted that the runoff would be an exceptionally tight contest. In the event, however, Petro won convincingly, taking more than 50 percent of the vote, compared with just over 47 percent for Hernández. Petro’s running mate, Francia Márquez, became the first Black woman to serve as Colombia’s vice president.