Gustavo Petro at the end of the first round of presidential elections in Bogota last month. Credit … Federico Rios for The New York Times
For the first time, Colombia will have a left-wing president.
Gustavo Petro, a longtime rebel and senator who has long pledged to transform the country’s economic system, has won Sunday’s election, according to preliminary results, placing Latin America’s third largest nation in a radically new path.
Mr. Petro, 62, received more than 50 percent of the vote, with more than 99 percent counted on Sunday evening. His opponent, Rodolfo Hernandez, a construction tycoon who had energized the country with a scorched earth anti-corruption platform, just over 47 percent.
Shortly after the vote, Mr. Hernandez yielded to Mr. Peter.
“Colombians, today most citizens have chosen the other candidate,” he told his supporters in Bucaramanga. “As I said during the campaign, I accept the results of this election.”
Just over 58 percent of Colombia’s 39 million voters voted, according to official figures.
The victory of Mr. Petro reflects widespread discontent in Colombia, a country of 50 million, with rising poverty and inequality and widespread dissatisfaction with the lack of opportunities, issues that sent hundreds of thousands of people to protest on the streets. last year.
“The whole country is calling for change,” said Fernando Posada, a Colombian political scientist, “and that is absolutely clear.”
The victory is even more significant for the country’s history. For decades, the government fought a brutal left-wing insurgency known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, with the stigma of the conflict hindering the development of a legitimate left.
But the FARC signed a peace deal with the government in 2016, laying down its arms and opening a space for broader political discourse.
Mr. Petro had been part of a different rebel group, called the M-19, which was demobilized in 1990 and became a political party that helped rewrite the country’s constitution.
Both Mr. Petro as Mr. Hernandez defeated Federico Gutierrez, a former mayor of the big city backed by the conservative elite, in a first round of voting on May 29, sending them to a second round.
Both men had come forward as anti-establishment candidates, saying they were running against a political class that had controlled the country for generations.
Among the factors that most distinguished them was how they saw the root of the country’s problems.
Mr. Petro believes the economic system is broken, overly dependent on oil exports and a thriving and illegal cocaine business that, he said, has made the rich richer and the poor poorer. It calls for a halt to all new oil exploration, a shift towards the development of other industries and an expansion of social programs, while imposing higher taxes on the rich.
“What we have today is the result of what I call‘ model exhaustion, ’” Mr. Petro in an interview, referring to the current economic system. “The end result is brutal poverty.”
However, his ambitious economic plan has aroused concern. A former finance minister described his energy plan as “economic suicide”.
Mr. Petro will take office in August, and will address urgent issues with global repercussions: lack of opportunities and increased violence, which have led to a record number of Colombians emigrating to the United States in recent months; high levels of deforestation in the Colombian Amazon, a critical buffer against climate change; and growing threats to democracy, part of a trend in the region.
It will face a deeply polarized society where polls show growing distrust in almost every major institution.
Mr. Petro could also reshape Colombia’s relationship with the United States.
For decades, Colombia has been Washington’s strongest ally in Latin America, forming the cornerstone of its security policy in the region. During his campaign, Mr. Petro promised to re-evaluate this relationship, including crucial collaborations on drugs, Venezuela and trade.
In the interview, Mr. Petro said their relationship with the United States would focus on working together to address climate change, specifically stopping the rapid erosion of the Amazon.
“There’s a point of dialogue there,” he said. “Because saving the Amazon rainforest involves some tools, some programs, that don’t exist today, at least not with respect to the United States.”
Megan Janetsky contributed reports from Bucaramanga, Colombia, and Sofía Villamil and Genevieve Glatsky contributed reports from Bogota.