The persecuted leftist, the man the establishment tried to destroy
After four decades of navigating Colombia's most turbulent political currents — as guerrilla, torture survivor, mayor, and senator — Gustavo Petro arrived at the 2022 presidential runoff carrying 8.5 million votes and the weight of a nation's unresolved contradictions. His candidacy posed a question Colombia had long deferred: whether a country shaped by conservative tradition, extractive economics, and the memory of armed conflict could choose a different kind of future. At sixty-two, in his third attempt at the presidency, Petro stood not merely as a candidate but as a mirror held up to Colombian society itself.
- With 8.5 million first-round votes, Petro became the most viable leftist candidate in Colombian history — a threshold no one on the left had crossed before.
- His past as an M-19 guerrilla, his removal from the Bogotá mayoralty, and the specter of the 1985 Palace of Justice massacre gave his opponents permanent ammunition in a deeply polarized electorate.
- Evangelical churches warned their congregations that a Petro presidency meant communism and moral collapse, while Venezuela loomed as a cautionary ghost over every proposal he made.
- Petro responded by moderating his tone, recruiting allies from the Uribe and Santos eras, and reaching toward evangelical leaders — moves that unsettled his base but reflected a strategic calculation about what the runoff required.
- His coalition had already won dozens of legislative seats, feminist critics within his own ranks were pushing him to evolve, and Petro himself admitted four years would only begin a transition — not complete one.
Gustavo Petro entered Colombia's 2022 presidential runoff as the most formidable leftist candidate the country had ever produced, carrying 8.5 million first-round votes into a contest against Rodolfo Hernández. Born in the northern department of Córdoba and now sixty-two years old, he had spent four decades accumulating a biography that seemed almost engineered for controversy: guerrilla fighter, torture survivor, congressman, mayor, senator.
His time in the M-19 defined him in the eyes of both supporters and enemies. The group was known for theatrical acts of resistance — tunneling into a military fortress, reclaiming Bolívar's sword as a symbol of the people. But the same organization stormed the Palace of Justice in 1985, and when the military retook the building, ninety-eight people were dead and eleven had disappeared. Petro maintained he was being tortured in an army barracks when the assault happened. The claim was defensible; politically, it was permanent.
What he offered in 2022 was a vision of Colombia organized around sustainability rather than extraction — an economy built on knowledge and production rather than oil and gas, a state that served life rather than capital. His coalition, the Pacto Histórico, had already won significant legislative seats, suggesting something was genuinely shifting in the electorate.
His path had not been without rupture. As Bogotá's mayor, he was removed from office over a garbage collection dispute and barred from public life for fifteen years. Rather than ending him, the episode transformed him. His public defense, and the crowds that filled the Plaza de Bolívar in response, recast him as a man the establishment had tried to destroy. When an international court ordered his reinstatement, he emerged larger than before.
For the runoff, Petro had deliberately softened his edges — bringing in politicians from across the traditional spectrum, reaching toward evangelical communities, building a coalition wide enough to hold first-time left-leaning voters. Some of his own supporters saw compromise where he saw strategy. Feminist critics within his coalition had challenged him on machismo; he had initially dismissed their concerns, then reversed course, calling feminism the future.
These contradictions — the theorist and the negotiator, the revolutionary shaped by violence who spoke of peace — made him hard to categorize. Speaking to CNN in 2021, he had been candid: four years would not remake Colombia. But it could begin a transition. That measured honesty, from a man with his history, was itself a kind of argument.
Gustavo Petro walked into the second round of Colombia's 2022 presidential election carrying 8.5 million votes from the first ballot—a number that made him the most formidable leftist candidate in the country's modern history. At sixty-two, born in a small town in the northern department of Córdoba, Petro had spent four decades moving through Colombian public life in ways that seemed designed to provoke maximum controversy: guerrilla fighter, torture survivor, congressman, diplomat, Bogotá's mayor, senator. Now, in his third attempt at the presidency, he faced Rodolfo Hernández in a runoff that would determine whether Colombia's traditionally conservative electorate would embrace the kind of transformation Petro was proposing.
The weight of his past shadowed everything. Petro had joined the M-19, an urban socialist guerrilla group, in his youth. The M-19 became famous for theatrical acts of resistance—stealing weapons from a military fortress through a tunnel, taking Bolívar's sword from a museum as a symbolic reclamation of the people's patrimony. But the same organization stormed the Palace of Justice on November 6, 1985, holding 350 hostages for two days. When the military retook the building, ninety-eight people died and eleven more vanished. Petro insisted he had no part in that assault; he was being tortured in an army barracks across the city when it happened. The claim was technically defensible but politically permanent—his opponents would never let it fade.
What Petro offered in 2022 was a vision of economic life organized around sustainability rather than extraction. He spoke of reorienting the economy toward knowledge and production instead of drilling for oil and gas. He wanted to deepen democracy, protect the environment, and build a state that served life rather than capital. In a country where the right had dominated for decades, where the specter of Venezuela haunted every leftist proposal, where evangelical churches preached that Petro would bring homosexuality and communism and Satan himself, this was a radical ask. Yet his coalition, the Pacto Histórico, had won sixteen senate seats and twenty-five house seats in the legislative elections. The numbers suggested something was shifting.
Petro's path to this moment had been marked by reversals and vindications. In 2011, he won the race for Bogotá's mayor. Three years later, facing a crisis over garbage collection, he was removed from office by the Procuraduría for fifteen years—barred from holding public position. The move looked like political execution. Instead, it transformed him. Images of Petro defending himself in public squares, crowds filling the Plaza de Bolívar in ways Colombians hadn't seen in decades, recast him as a man persecuted by the establishment. When the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ordered his reinstatement in 2014, he emerged not diminished but enlarged, a leftist leader who had survived the machinery arrayed against him.
In 2018, he had run against Iván Duque and lost, finishing second in a polarized contest where many voters chose abstention or backed Duque out of fear. This time, Petro had moderated his tone. He had brought in traditional politicians—men who had once served under Álvaro Uribe and Juan Manuel Santos—to broaden his coalition. He had reached toward evangelical pastors. The move troubled some of his own supporters, who saw it as compromise. But Petro was being strategic. He knew that in the runoff, nearly everyone would line up against him. He needed to build a tent large enough to hold people who had never voted left before.
Yet Petro remained a figure of visceral passion. People either idolized him or despised him. The feminist movement within his own coalition had criticized him for not addressing machismo in his ranks, for dismissing feminism as a relic of old-left intellectualism in big cities. He had later walked that back, calling feminism the future and the path to change. These contradictions—the theorist who could sound distant, the revolutionary who was learning to negotiate, the man shaped by violence who spoke of peace—made him difficult to pin down, which was perhaps the point.
In July 2021, speaking to CNN, Petro had been candid about the limits of what he could accomplish. Four years would not be enough to remake Colombian society and the state. But he could begin a transition—toward democracy, toward peace. That modest framing, coming from a man who had once been a guerrilla, suggested someone who had learned something from his own history. As he entered the runoff, the question was whether enough Colombians had learned something too.
Notable Quotes
Colombia is a very conservative country where there exists a collective idea that major change is a leap into the abyss— Jorge Andrés Hernández, political analyst
I cannot be ambitious or dishonest in thinking that in four years we can produce real change in Colombian society and the state, but we initiate a transition—toward democracy and toward peace— Gustavo Petro
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why does Petro's past as a guerrilla still matter so much if he wasn't directly involved in the Palace of Justice takeover?
Because in politics, association is often stronger than fact. He was part of the M-19. The M-19 did it. That chain of logic is simple and powerful, and it doesn't require much nuance to spread. His denials are technically credible—he says he was being tortured elsewhere—but they don't erase the image.
So the torture itself becomes part of his political identity?
Exactly. He was a young man who suffered state violence. That's real. But it also becomes a narrative: the persecuted leftist, the man the establishment tried to destroy. When they removed him as mayor in 2013, it actually strengthened him because it looked like persecution. The images of him in the plaza, crowds gathering—that became his origin story for this moment.
Why would traditional politicians align with him if he represents such a radical break?
Because they're reading the same numbers he is. The left got three times as many votes as the right in the legislative elections. That's not noise. And in a runoff, the math changes. You need a majority, not a plurality. So politicians who spent decades in the center-right are calculating that being on the winning side matters more than ideological purity.
Is he actually moderate, or is he just performing moderation?
That's the question everyone's asking. He's certainly more careful with his language in 2022 than he was in 2018. But he's also said clearly that four years won't be enough to transform Colombia. That's not the rhetoric of someone promising revolution. It's someone being realistic about what power can do.
What does he actually want to change?
The structure of the economy. He wants Colombia to stop living off oil and gas extraction and build something based on knowledge and production. He wants environmental protection. He wants to deepen democracy. These aren't small things in a country that's been run by the right for decades. But they're also not Venezuela. They're social democracy, basically.
And the people who hate him—what are they actually afraid of?
Change itself. Colombia is deeply conservative. The idea that a leftist could win is genuinely frightening to people who've benefited from the current order. So they reach for the biggest fears they can find: communism, Venezuela, the dissolution of traditional values. Some of it is propaganda. Some of it is real anxiety about what a different Colombia would look like.