Follow us on social

Screen-shot-2022-04-21-at-5.02.29-pm

Will Washington's favored candidate prevail in tight Colombia race?

Conservative Fico Gutiérrez's popularity with the U.S. may not help him against popular leftist Gustavo Petro.

Analysis | Latin America

Both the Trump and Biden administrations had an easy relationship with the deeply conservative government that has ruled Colombia since 2018.

U.S. officials, who call Iván Duque’s Colombia “a keystone of the region,” have been more content with the 45-year-old president’s performance than most Colombians, who give him a mere 20-percent approval rating. Duque’s four years come to an end in August, and Colombia will elect a new president on May 29, with a second, run-off round on June 19.

This will be one of the most consequential and contested elections ever for Latin America’s third-largest country. The result will have major implications for the U.S. government, which has given Colombia more than$13 billion in assistance so far this century, far more than for any other country in the hemisphere.

Head-to-head second-round scenario pollingshows a razor-thinmargin between the two leading candidates, who represent dramatically different visions of government. Federico “Fico” Gutiérrez, a former Medellín mayor, offers continuity with Duque’s conservative politics, which the Biden administration might find reassuring. It would, however, mean continuity with a model of which most Colombians appear to disapprove after four years of worsening violence and economic insecurity.

Gustavo Petro, a former leftist guerrilla and mayor of Bogotá, offers radical change that could consolidate a 2016 peace accord and implement reforms to address one of the world’s worst records of income and land inequality. Petro leads in first-round polling by a comfortable margin. However, he carries a strong whiff of populism and appears open to cooperation with China and Russia, which worries the United States. U.S. diplomats havesounded alarms about Russian interference in Colombia’s campaign, mostly via social media, and they could only be referring to Petro.

Also polling in low double digits is Rodolfo Hernández, a septuagenarian former governor running as an independent. Hernández is a right-of-center populist with unorthodox views (he told the U.S. ambassador that he favors legalizing drugs) and is campaigning mostly on social media. Roughly tied with him is Sergio Fajardo, a well-regarded but uncharismatic former mayor and governor who, as a moderate technocrat, probably offers a combination of peace accord implementation and pro-Western outlook that Washington would find comforting. At this moment, it’s unlikely that either Hernández or Fajardo will reach the second round, but both could offer powerful second-round endorsements.

Iván Duque’s political party was founded by former president Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010), a hard-right politician with a troubled human rights record, but who achieved security improvements. One of the most pro-Washington Latin American leaders in memory, Uribe received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from George W. Bush. Uribe and Duque’s “Democratic Center” party has populist-militarist tendencies and represents large landowners and big business in one of the world’s most unequal countries. Still, U.S. officials of both parties have been comfortable working with leaders from the CD and its coalition partners since they share so much of Washington’s agenda — from openness to investment and 1980s-style hardline anti-drug policy, to animosity toward Venezuela, condemnation of Russia, and skepticism about China’s regional intentions.

Duque bested Petro in the second round of the 2018 election, but good relations with Washington have not been enough to save his presidency. He took power after a peace accord demobilized the country’s largest guerrilla group, but failed to take the country’s security policy off of its war footing. While the military reacted to provocations without a clear strategy, vast areas of the country were left ungoverned; new armed groups rushed to fill the vacuum left by demobilized FARC guerrillas, and coca cultivation increased.

As commodity prices slid and COVID slammed the economy, Duque ran out of resources. His government was reluctant to increase taxes on the wealthiest, choosing instead to impose a regressive tax hike that resulted in last year’s mass protests, which in turn were prolonged by a brutal response from a police force shaped by decades of armed conflict. Meanwhile, implementation of the 2016 peace accord hasfallen ever farther behind, and Colombia is now considered the world’s most dangerous country forsocial leaders orenvironmental defenders. Today, Duque and Uribe are both unpopular and have few “coattails” to offer Gutiérrez, their preferred successor.

This gives an advantage to Gustavo Petro, whose coalition won the most seats (though far short of a majority) in last month’s legislative elections. To some extent, the campaign is a referendum on Petro, probably the most progressive of any viable presidential candidate since 1945. Colombia has been a dangerous place to be a leftist politician since at least the 1940s. That a former guerrilla with progressive views can be a frontrunner points to a major opening, enabled by a peace accord that broke the link in citizens’ minds between “progressive politics” and “destructive guerrillas.”

Petro promises to fully implement the peace accord, increase the government’s presence in the countryside — probably the best long-term drug supply-reduction strategy — and reform drug policy. He made his name 15 years ago as an anti-corruption senator.

He is not a perfect candidate, however. With a reputation for craving attention and preferring conflict over compromise, he worries institutionalists by proposing to rule by decree on economic issues. He has been notably quiet on the Ukraine invasion, failing to explicitly condemn it. And while he proposes a “social pardon” for some criminals, his brother just visited a Bogotá prison to meet with politicians jailed for corruption, triggering a scandal that mars his anti-corruption brand.

Regardless of who wins, the vote result is likely to be valid: despite unusual hiccups during March legislative balloting, Colombia publishes results more quickly, and more transparently, than the United States. (Vote-buying, however, is common, especially in poor areas.) The result will most likely reflect the will of the Colombian people, and Washington will have to respect it, as its diplomats have pledged to do.

If Petro wins, U.S. officials shouldn’t expect him to jet off immediately to Caracas and Moscow. There will be a honeymoon period that skilled U.S. diplomats must seize as an opportunity to build a working relationship by supporting policies to bolster the peace accord and reduce poverty, and to encourage Petro’s less-populist tendencies. (It doesn’t help that Washington is unlikely to have a confirmed ambassador in Bogotá by August.) To reject him from the outset would likely push him toward great-power rivals.

If Fico Gutiérrez wins, the Biden administration’s approach should start with the need to rescue the peace accord, especially its rural governance provisions, from the Duque government’s bare-boned implementation and neglect. Though it would mean pushing against some long-entrenched preferences in Washington’s law enforcement and drug-war bureaucracies: a new approach to drugs and organized crime, based on enhancing state presence in ungoverned areas and fighting the official corruption that fosters organized crime is desperately needed. Punishing corruption may be a much more difficult challenge in a Gutiérrez government, which will include many of the longtime regional political bosses and landowners who have fostered it.

If the election is close, U.S. messaging will be even more important. If a candidate wins with 51 percent in today’s polarized climate, the danger that the loser will reject the result is real. The left would mobilize in the streets. The military may rattle sabers. Absent concrete evidence of fraud, U.S. officials must work multilaterally and avoid any public pronouncements — even unintended gaffes — that cast doubt on the result. The top U.S. interest will be in helping Colombia and its democracy get through what could be its most serious challenge in 70 years.


Gustavo Petro and Federico Gutierrez (Photos: Daniel Andres Garzon)
Analysis | Latin America
 Abdel Fattah al-Burhan Sudan
Top image credit: Sudan's army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan gestures to soldiers inside the presidential palace after the Sudanese army said it had taken control of the building, in the capital Khartoum, Sudan March 26, 2025. Sudan Transitional Sovereignty Council/Handout via REUTERS

Saudi Arabia chooses sides in Sudan's civil war

Africa

In the final days of Ramadan, before Mecca's Grand Mosque, Sudan's de facto president and army chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan knelt in prayer beside Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. Al-Burhan had arrived in the kingdom just two days after his troops dealt a significant blow to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), recapturing the capital Khartoum after two years of civil war. Missing from the frame was the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Gulf power that has backed al-Burhan’s rivals in Sudan’s civil war with arms, mercenaries, and political cover.

The scene captured the essence of a deepening rift between Saudi Arabia and the UAE — once allies in reshaping the Arab world, now architects of competing visions for Sudan and the region.

For two years, Sudan has been enveloped in chaos. The conflict that erupted in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed forces (SAF) and the RSF, led by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo "Hemedti," has inflicted immense suffering: an estimated 150,000 killed, allegations of mass atrocities staining both sides but particularly the RSF in Darfur, 12 million displaced, and over half the population facing acute food insecurity.

keep readingShow less
Donald Trump Massad Boulos
Top image credit: Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump is joined by Massad Boulos, who was recently named as a 'senior advisor to the President on Arab and Middle Eastern Affairs,' during a campaign stop at the Great Commoner restaurant in Dearborn, Michigan, U.S., on November 1, 2024. REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File Photo

Trump tasks first time envoy with the most complex Africa conflict

Africa

As the war between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and allied militias against the Rwandan-backed M23 rebel group continues, the Trump administration is reportedly tapping Massad Boulos as the State Department’s special envoy to the African Great Lakes region.

In this capacity, Boulos will be responsible for leading the American diplomatic effort to bring long-desired stability to the region and to end a conflict that has been raging in the eastern DRC for decades.

keep readingShow less
Sens. Paul and Merkley to Trump: Are we 'stumbling' into another war?
Top photo credit: Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky) (Gage Skidmore /Creative Commons) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) )( USDA photo by Preston Keres)

Sens. Paul and Merkley to Trump: Are we 'stumbling' into another war?

QiOSK

Senators Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) have co-written a letter to the White House, demanding to know the administration’s strategy behind the now-18 days of airstrikes against the Houthis in Yemen.

The letter calls into question the supposed intent of these strikes “to establish deterrence,” acknowledging that neither the Biden administration’s strikes in October 2023, nor the years-long bombing campaign by Saudi Arabia from 2014 to 2020, were successful in debilitating the military organization's military capabilities.

keep readingShow less

Trump transition

Latest

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.