73 Facts About Gustavo Petro

Gustavo Francisco Petro Urrego is a Colombian economist, politician, and former guerrilla fighter of Italian origin who is the current president of Colombia since 2022.

At 17 years of age, Petro became a member of the guerrilla group 19th of April Movement, which later evolved into the M-19 Democratic Alliance, a political party in which he was elected to be a member of the Chamber of Representatives in the 1991 Colombian parliamentary election.

Gustavo Petro served as a senator as a member of the Alternative Democratic Pole party following the 2006 Colombian parliamentary election with the second-largest vote.

Gustavo Petro defeated Rodolfo Hernandez Suarez in the second round of the 2022 Colombian presidential election on 19 June.

Gustavo Petro was born in Cienaga de Oro, in the department of Cordoba, in 1960.

Gustavo Petro was raised in the Catholic faith and has stated that he has a vision of God from liberation theology, although he questioned God's existence.

Gustavo Petro studied at the Colegio de Hermanos de La Salle, where he founded the student newspaper Carta al Pueblo.

Gustavo Petro used the pseudonym of Aureliano, a character in the novel One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Gustavo Petro then went completely underground and became close to Carlos Pizarro, one of the main commanders of the M-19, and insisted with him on the need for a negotiated political solution to the Colombian armed conflict and on the transition to a Constituent Assembly.

In 1985, Gustavo Petro was arrested by the army for the crime of illegal possession of arms.

Gustavo Petro graduated with a degree in economics from the Universidad Externado de Colombia and began graduate studies at the Escuela Superior de Administracion Publica.

Gustavo Petro then traveled to Belgium and started his graduate studies in Economy and Human Rights at the Universite catholique de Louvain.

Gustavo Petro began his studies towards a doctoral degree in public administration from the University of Salamanca in Spain.

In 2002, Gustavo Petro was elected to the Chamber of Representatives representing Bogota, this time as a member of the Via Alterna political movement he founded with former colleague Antonio Navarro Wolff and other former M-19 members.

In 2006, Gustavo Petro was elected to the Senate, mobilizing the second highest voter turnout in the country.

In 2005, while a member of the Chamber of Representatives, Gustavo Petro denounced the lottery businesswoman Enilse Lopez.

Gustavo Petro alleged that the AUC financially contributed to the presidential campaign of Alvaro Uribe in 2002.

In February 2007 Gustavo Petro began a public verbal dispute with President Uribe when Gustavo Petro suggested that the president should have recused himself from negotiating the demobilization process of paramilitaries in Colombia; this followed accusations that Uribe's brother, Santiago Uribe, was a former member of the Twelve Apostles paramilitary group in the mid-1990s.

President Uribe responded by accusing Gustavo Petro of being a "terrorist in civilian clothing" and by summoning the opposition to an open debate.

On 17 April 2007, Gustavo Petro began a debate in Congress about CONVIVIR and the development of paramilitarism in Antioquia Department.

Gustavo Petro criticized the actions of Alvaro Uribe as Governor of Antioquia Department during the CONVIVIR years, and presented an old photograph of Alvaro Uribe's brother, Santiago, alongside Colombian drug trafficker Fabio Ochoa Vazquez.

Gustavo Petro then mentioned that he had many photographs, taken with many people.

On 18 April 2007, the Vigilance and Security Superintendency released a communique rejecting Gustavo Petro's accusations concerning the CONVIVIR groups.

Gustavo Petro has frequently reported threats against his life and the lives of his family, as well as persecution by government-run security organizations.

In 2008, Gustavo Petro announced his interest in a presidential candidacy for 2010.

Gustavo Petro distanced himself from government policies and, along with Lucho Garzon and Maria Emma Mejia, led a dissenting faction within the Alternative Democratic Pole.

On 27 September 2009, Gustavo Petro defeated Carlos Gaviria in a primary election as the Alternative Democratic Pole candidate for the 2010 presidential election.

On 30 October 2011, Gustavo Petro won the municipal election in Bogota.

Gustavo Petro is the first ex-guerrilla to hold such an important position in Colombia.

Gustavo Petro proposed a policy to conserve the wetlands of Bogota and plan for the preservation of water in the face of global warming.

In June 2012, Gustavo Petro banned bullfighting within the Santamaria Bullring, a measure that was later rejected by the Constitutional Court.

Gustavo Petro proposed the construction of a subway for the city.

The subway plans contracted by Gustavo Petro's administration were discarded by his successor Enrique Penalosa, who opted for an elevated railway system with allegedly lower investment required and better coverage.

Gustavo Petro's sanction was allegedly caused by mismanagement and illegal decrees signed during the implementation of his waste collection system.

Gustavo Petro was reinstated as mayor on 23 April 2014 and finished his term.

In 2018, Gustavo Petro was again a presidential candidate, this time getting the second best result in voting counting in the first round on 27 May, and advanced to the second round.

Gustavo Petro's campaign was run by publicists Angel Beccassino, Alberto Cienfuegos and Luis Fernando Pardo.

Gustavo Petro's platform emphasized support for universal health care, public banking, a rejection of proposals to expand fracking and mining in favor of investing in clean energy, and land reform.

Gustavo Petro served until the inauguration of a new congress in 2022.

Gustavo Petro received death threats from the paramilitary group Aguilas Negras.

In 2021, Gustavo Petro declared that he would be running in the 2022 elections.

In September 2021, Gustavo Petro announced that he would retire from politics if his campaign were not to succeed, stating that he does not intend to be an "eternal candidate".

Gustavo Petro has promised to focus on climate change and reducing greenhouse gas emissions that cause it by ending fossil fuel exploration in Colombia.

Gustavo Petro pledged to raise taxes on the wealthiest 4,000 Colombians and said that neoliberalism would ultimately "destroy the country".

Gustavo Petro announced that he would be open to having president Ivan Duque stand trial for police brutality committed during the 2021 Colombian protests.

Gustavo Petro announced that his first act as president will be to declare a state of economic emergency to combat widespread hunger.

Gustavo Petro is advocating progressive proposals on women's rights and LGBTQ issues.

Gustavo Petro stated that he would restore diplomatic relations with Venezuela.

Gustavo Petro proposed combatting Colombia's cocaine trade with the growth of legal marijuana, and has opposed extraditions of accused drug criminals to the United States.

Whilst he has praised former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez for bolstering equality, Gustavo Petro said during an interview with French newspaper Le Monde in May 2022 that Chavez made a "serious mistake of linking his social program to oil revenues".

Gustavo Petro criticized Venezuela's commitment to oil by president Maduro.

Gustavo Petro argued that "Maduro's Venezuela and Duque's Colombia are more similar than they seem", pointing to the Duque administration's commitment to non-renewable energy and the "authoritarian drift" of both governments.

Later, after the elections, the Colombian media Noticia Uno revealed that Gustavo Petro's campaign had been spied on by Colombian intelligence agents and that information had been passed on to the press to try to discredit him.

Gustavo Petro spent the month and a half between his election and his inauguration negotiating with centrist and right-wing political parties to build a majority in Congress, where the left had a minority in both houses.

Gustavo Petro announced plans to resume peace negotiations with the National Liberation Army guerrillas, which had been suspended after the 2019 Bogota car bombing, where more than 20 cadets at a police academy were killed.

The cabinet of Gustavo Petro's government took office on August 7,2022, in conjunction with the inauguration of the president.

At the beginning of his presidency, Gustavo Petro announced that he wanted to initiate agrarian reform to promote access to property for poor peasant families in a country where one per cent of farms hold 80 per cent of the cultivable land.

Gustavo Petro had met Chavez in 1994, on Seventh Street in Bogota, after inviting the latter to come to Colombia to learn more about the new Political Constitution of 1991.

Gustavo Petro expressed: "Even if many do not like him, Hugo Chavez will be a man who will be remembered by the history of Latin America, his critics will be forgotten", "a friend and a hope is gone".

In 2020, Gustavo Petro claimed that if Colombia reestablished diplomatic relations, cut off by Maduro, and sold food to Venezuela, Venezuelan immigration would cease.

In October 2022, Gustavo Petro claimed that the number of migrants returning to Venezuela at that time outnumbered those leaving the country, arguing that there were more Colombian migrants entering Venezuela than Venezuelans entering Colombia.

Gustavo Petro has supported an advance in the elimination of obstacles and stigmas to recognize the union of same-sex couples and their rights to adoption and social security.

Gustavo Petro denounced that Petro betrayed the agreement to include female leaders and Afro leaders on their lists to Congress.

Gustavo Petro is a supporter of the feminist movement, with his government program including proposals such as the creation of the Ministry of Equality and a chapter dedicated to women.

In October 2021, Marquez said that Gustavo Petro should "learn more about feminism".

In June 2022, Gustavo Petro attended the Feminist Debate, a space convened by more than 30 social organizations of women, feminists and the LGBTIQ+ population, in order to present their proposals to the presidential candidates.

Gustavo Petro promised that he will enforce the constitutional ruling that decriminalized the interruption of pregnancy until the 24th week.

In January 2023, Gustavo Petro indicated that he wanted Colombia to move towards a preventive healthcare system in which disease is prevented as far as possible.

Gustavo Petro said he would deliver a monthly bonus of about US$110 to almost three million recipients of the state's age based pension.

Shortly after, while on the run, Gustavo Petro began a relationship with Mary Luz Herran, ten years his junior.

Gustavo Petro met Herran when he was seeking refuge in her hometown.

Gustavo Petro met his current wife, Veronica Alcocer, in the late 1990s at a conference where Gustavo Petro filled in for the absent primary speaker.

Gustavo Petro divorced Herran and married Alcocer in 2003; he initially had a shaky relationship with the conservative Alcocer family, but he later won the approval of Veronica's father.