Weekly update, June 30
Elections in Colombia and France, protests in Ecuador, start of government formation in Lebanon
Colombia:
Left-wing candidate Gustavo Petro won the presidential elections in Colombia last week, beating opponent Rodolfo Hernandez in the runoff by 50% to 47%. It’s an historic victory for the Colombian left, which has never come to power in modern history.
For most of the 20th century, Colombia was ruled by the duopoly of the Liberal and Conservative parties. In the latter half of the 1900s, a number of socialist and communist guerrilla groups became active across the country, channelling the frustration of poor and rural citizens who had no representation in traditional bourgeois politics. Their conflict with the Colombian state, and right wing paramilitaries deputized by the state, was further fueled by the explosion of the drug trade in the 1980s.