Gustavo Petro’s Final Year
Gustavo Petro became Colombia’s first left-wing president three years ago. With a hostile Congress threatening his landmark labor reform, he’s scrambling to make sure he’s not its last.
Colombian president Gustavo Petro attends a rally in Bogota on March 18, 2025, to pressure Congress to approve the government reforms. (Raul Arboleda / AFP via Getty Images)
Not even the reality show La Casa de los Famosos, a spin-off of Big Brother, managed to surpass the audience of the first televised Council of Ministers in Colombia last February. Millions of Colombians watched live as some ministers criticized President Gustavo Petro, another lavished him with praise in a tone resembling a declaration of love, and other cabinet members exchanged reproaches.
This unusual exercise in government transparency, which Petro has repeated several times, has been one of the Colombian president’s latest ideas to revive his popularity, which is down to 32 percent just one year away from the 2026 parliamentary and presidential elections. The resignation in March of finance minister Diego Guevara after he pushed for budget cuts shows that Petro is already focused on the 2026 elections, though he himself cannot seek reelection as the constitution bars it.
The first left-wing government in Colombia’s recent history enters its fourth and final year with the same sense of instability that has accompanied it from the start, a result of its lack of a parliamentary majority and the relentless pressure from economic, media, and judicial elites. Some of the reforms promised in 2022 have been approved, while others remain stalled in a Congress controlled by the traditional parties, and the goal of “total peace” with domestic armed groups remains a dream. The outcome of the 2026 elections will depend on the final balance of the government’s reformist agenda, Petro’s ability to mobilize his supporters, and the conservative opposition’s capacity to unite behind candidates.
The former M-19 guerrilla turned president is well aware that the streets are the battleground where he can outmaneuver conservative forces. That is why he responded to the Senate’s rejection of his labor reform, which sought to reduce working hours and improve overtime pay, by calling for a popular referendum on the measure.
For the referendum to succeed, it needs 13.5 million votes, a very difficult figure to achieve given Petro was elected with 11.2 million votes. However, polls show majority support for holding the vote, suggesting the appeal of Petro’s anti-elitist rhetoric against opposition lawmakers. Even if the referendum does not take place, the Pacto Histórico, Petro’s broad-left coalition, has found in the referendum a rallying cry to mobilize its base and political momentum for the Left at a time when the government’s perceived decay was becoming unsustainable.
An Incomplete Reform Agenda
The labor reform is not the only proposal that has run up against a Congress dominated by the old parties. The health reform, which was finally approved by the House of Representatives on March 6, also faced countless obstacles. If the Senate confirms its support, one of the Pacto Histórico’s main legislative projects will become reality — an initiative aimed at reducing the role of private insurers in the health care system and improving prevention and access to services.
Petro has been forced to include representatives from center-right parties in his government to secure their support, as he did to pass his first tax reform. Throughout his term, Petro has combined popular mobilizations in support of his reforms with negotiations with the traditional parties, whose members have often proved willing to abandon their resistance in exchange for positions of power.
The Pacto Histórico government has also succeeded in passing its education reform, which establishes free university access for students from the most disadvantaged social strata and pension reform. The latter is the most important for reducing the enormous social inequalities inherited from decades of neoliberal governments. (Despite its robust economy, Colombia is arguably the most unequal country in Latin America, which is the most unequal region in the world.)
Petro’s reform has strengthened the public pension system by creating a “solidarity pillar” that guarantees dignified pensions even for those who have not reached the contribution threshold and takes into account the time women dedicate to childcare. Only one in four elderly Colombians received a pension in 2022, according to a report by the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. The reform is expected to alleviate this situation, reducing poverty among those over sixty.
In addition, Petro has made Colombia an international example of socio-ecological transition policies. He has promoted social agreements with farmers and indigenous communities to protect the Amazon, boosted renewable energy by amending regulations to increase benefits for local communities, and kept his promise to block new hydrocarbon exploration — an unprecedented measure accelerating the path to a post–fossil fuel future. Though it is still too early to assess the impact of these policies, the Colombian government’s determined ecological push contrasts with the weak action of its counterparts in the Global North.
Land Redistribution and the Elusive “Total Peace”
One of the main pending reforms is improving land distribution in Colombia, the most unequal in Latin America: 80 percent of the land belongs to 1 percent of the population. Nearly a third of Colombians are farmers, meaning millions survive on tiny plots. An analysis by the National University of Colombia revealed that each cow in extensive livestock farming has more grazing land than a farming family has to cultivate. The internal armed conflict that has plagued the country since the 1960s has worsened the problem, as large landowners have often used paramilitary groups to expel farmers from their land.
The Pacto Histórico government sought to reverse this situation by distributing land to farming families and formalizing small and medium rural properties. These goals were already outlined in the peace agreement signed in 2016 between the Colombian state and the now disbanded Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla group, but the conservative government of Iván Duque (2018–2022) did not implement the agreement.
Petro’s administration, which has ruled out forced expropriations, has designated just over one hundred thousand hectares, far from the three million targeted by the Peace Agreement. The Agrarian Jurisdiction Law, which would speed up land redistribution, is still pending approval and has faced strong opposition from the Right in Congress. “The far right will always seek to maintain the unjust land ownership in Colombia,” Petro wrote on Twitter/X in 2024. “They know that violence and drug trafficking have emerged from it and have fueled the political project of backwardness on which they are built.”
The other major unfinished task of the Petro government is “total peace,” its most ambitious goal. The 2016 peace agreement ended the war between the state and the FARC, but dissident former FARC fighters, paramilitary and criminal groups, and the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrilla group still control vast areas of Colombian territory. The largest group is the Clan del Golfo, a nine-thousand-fighter force led by former paramilitary commanders and drug traffickers. After the failure of previous governments’ militarist strategies, Petro initiated dialogue processes with several of these illegal groups. Cease-fires achieved in various parts of Colombia reduced violence, a report from the Special Jurisdiction for Peace confirmed.
However, the failure of peace talks with the ELN that appeared promising and the outbreak of violence between armed groups in the Catatumbo region in early 2025, which left dozens dead and thousands displaced, buried the “total peace” aim for the short term. Though it has not abandoned dialogue with armed groups, the government has increased military pressure and focused on negotiations with armed groups at the local scale to de-escalate the conflict and protect civilians.
The Long Race to 2026
While trying to pass pending key reforms, the Pacto Histórico is already looking ahead to 2026. Legislative elections will be held in March, and presidential elections in May and June. The Pacto Histórico has not yet selected a candidate, though it has confirmed that the coalition will become a single party, reducing the risk of divisions on the Left. The same cannot be said for the center and the Right, which are locked in a fierce battle to lead the opposition.
The most talked-about name to succeed Petro is Gustavo Bolívar, current director of social prosperity and failed mayoral candidate for Bogotá in the last elections, also known as the author of novels adapted into highly successful TV shows, such as Sin Tetas No Hay Paraíso. Another option is María José Pizarro, a senator and the daughter of Carlos Pizarro, an M-19 comrade of Petro who was assassinated in 1990.
The Right is convinced that Petro’s time is up but disagrees on who should succeed him. Outsider Vicky Dávila, former director of Semana magazine and a fierce critic of Petro, stands out in the race, positioning herself as Colombia’s version of Donald Trump or Javier Milei. She will have to compete with potential candidates from the Democratic Center, the ultraconservative party of former president Álvaro Uribe, who is currently on trial for alleged ties to paramilitary groups. Among them are Senators Miguel Uribe, María Fernanda Cabal, and Paloma Valencia, all with hard-right stances. Bogotá mayor Juan Manuel Galán (center-right) and former centrist presidential candidates Sergio Fajardo and Germán Vargas could also join the race.
With no confirmed candidates yet, a March poll showed a highly fragmented vote, with Bolívar (11.8 percent), Fajardo (9.5 percent), and Dávila (8.3 percent) leading. However, the good news for the Left ends there, as voters identifying with right-wing and centrist ideologies total over 57 percent, while fewer than 19 percent identify as left-wing. Alliances between centrist and right-wing candidates will be key.
The only certainty for the Pacto Histórico is that the pre-campaign, which has already begun, will play out on two parallel fronts: Congress, where the government will push its major pending reforms at any cost, and the streets, where Petro will try to mobilize his supporters in defense of his labor reform, a symbol of the political change he has led since 2022.