The presidential candidates competing for Gustavo Petro’s flags in the 2026 elections held their first meeting. At the headquarters of the Chamber of Commerce in Bogota and with the support of former Spanish President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, many progressive voices gathered on Tuesday to unite the Frente Amplio, an alliance of forces that intend to elect a single candidate to consolidate their votes from the first presidential round. Like a TV star, the Spanish politician started the event after he was received in the hall by dozens of soldiers who applauded him, embraced him, and fired dozens of shots at him. Personal photos with. “You win because no one has ever given anything to the left,” he said in his opening remarks.
The proposal is to create an electoral platform that supports a joint programmatic project. Among the first to put forward this idea, in 2024, are former President Ernesto Samper, who for decades has been a figure in the more left-wing sector of the traditional party, and former candidate Rui Barreras, who has spoken of the importance of mobilizing new supporters outside the hard-line bases of the left.
But political reality made the initiative questionable. The left has united early around Senator Iván Cepeda since he won the internal consultation in October that totaled nearly 2.8 million votes, a very positive result and creates the risk of losing weight in another consultation with fewer votes. Even more so when a recent election poll showed him holding steady, with more than 30% voting intention, while none of the other candidates reached 3%. The gap is large and the preferred candidate, who began a campaign with low media coverage, did not attend the meeting.
Despite this, the promoters insist. “The idea was sold to us by the unforgettable Pepe Mujica, and we had support from several Uruguayan delegations to build it,” Samper explains of the path already taken. The former president, who organized the ceremony, explained that political parties, popular movements, and social organizations are invited to unite. On Tuesday, he received four primary candidates: Barreras, who has his own party called La Fuerza; former minister and senator Clara Lopez, a long-time leftist activist; and Camilo Romero, former governor of Nariño, from left. They were accompanied by Senator María José Pizarro, chair of the Cepeda debate.
The progressive bases who attended the meeting sent a unanimous message that they need to win the support of voters who consider themselves more centrist or liberal, to boost their chances of winning the presidential election. “We must have an unbreakable commitment to unity, and we hope that it will be in the first round if it is achieved, and if not in the second round,” Senator Lopez expressed.
However, without clear rules, a wide forehead is at risk of breaking before birth. Tensions have escalated in recent months. Carlos Caicedo, a former progressive governor of Magdalena who was one of the potential participants, questioned the absence of a transparent decision-making mechanism. He came to say: “The broad front does not exist.” How to incorporate Cepeda is also under discussion. His absence from the meeting revealed the difficulty of communication between those who are already campaigning and those who advocate the need to build the coalition first.
There are also doubts about the joint programme. Barreras, one of Colombia’s most experienced politicians, suggests he should start by defending Petro: “This government has defended the rights of workers, women and minorities and we cannot go back. He (the president) taught people that they have rights.” Former Interior Minister Juan Fernando Cristo, who did not attend the meeting, made clear his more critical positions towards the government, which includes in Cepeda’s campaign an already visible and popularly elected advocate.
In this diversity of visions, the commitment to continuing negotiations with illegal armed groups appears to be the main slogan of the broad front. Without details about their proposals, all participants in the meeting mentioned them. The inspiration came from the former Spanish president: “Peace will come to Colombia. The end of violence will come,” Zapatero shouted. Pizarro, who spoke on behalf of the historic charter candidate, toured the country’s peace projects, starting with the Constituent Assembly in 1991. “Talking about peace cannot be a crime in Colombia. Of course we believe in security, but the word peace cannot be banned from Colombian politics,” he said.
But he also pointed to the legal problems facing the broad front. In a firm tone, the most visible woman in Cepeda’s campaign warned, just under a week before the deadline to officially register nominations with the Registry, that the historic charter had no legal guarantees. Barreras also questioned the legal chaos caused by the National Electoral Council, which has put the conduct of the Front’s broad consultations in doubt. He said in a triumphant tone, “It is a body of political origin, poorly created. Its decisions are political and convincing in a judicial body. My call is that it cannot oppose the will of three million Colombians.”
The two, like others, used the opportunity to defend the left’s broad program and criticize the opposite extremism. The former president of Congress said, “The Colombian right wants to return to rights. Listening to them speak is like returning to the conservative hegemony that prevailed in 1910.” Pizarro supported him, saying: “Let us not allow the bloodthirsty criminal right in this country, which is able to pressure the United States so that the president goes to prison and starts an all-out war, and is unable to return to power.”
The final image, with the candidates raising their fists in front of the cameras and the audience, displayed the postcard of a reunited progressive sector, but with the conspicuous absence of its leading candidate. Behind the absence lies disagreement over how to translate this gesture into a firm alliance.