An alternative to the historic Pact is emerging in Colombian politics. Former Santa Marta Mayor Carlos Caicedo joined forces with President Gustavo Petro, a longtime ally, to launch his own coalition ahead of March 8 legislative elections. On this date, in addition, the former governor of Magdalena intends to compete with former minister Luis Carlos Reyes and former magistrate Jaime Araújo in an independent consultation with the Broad Front that the ruling party promotes to define another presidential candidacy. These lists also constitute a lifeline for Comunes, the party of peace signatories resulting from the agreement with the disappeared FARC guerrillas and which the Historic Pact did not want to integrate. The divide in progressivism facing the 2026 elections is a reality.
The idea is “to move forward in a process of presenting alternative leaderships to all of Colombia,” Caicedo explained this Thursday, accompanied by Reyes and Araújo, during the launch in a hotel in Bogotá of the Citizen Force Coalition, of the same name of his political movement. The path focused on social justice that Colombia began to follow in 2022, when it elected Petro as the first left-wing president in contemporary history, is a “cry that still persists, especially in the regions,” said the lawyer who dominates the politics of his department, in the Caribbean region. The coalition – made up of 11 political parties, movements and organizations – aims to lead the presidential debate and become a “real alternative” to power to deepen changes and transformations.
“The chameleon posture of many politicians who approach the government in place is what led us to call for a consultation with those who believe that a clean policy can be carried out, linked to the aspirations of the majority,” Caicedo said of this primary mechanism, in a veiled criticism of a historic Pact that accepted into its ranks figures with a long history of right-wing or traditional politics. Since Petrism, “they have the erroneous idea that the left cannot win without the chameleon and opportunist right, and we think that is an error,” he insisted to explain their differences. In the balance, he assures, there is a model which focused on the construction of a left of results, which it claims to represent, and another “enriched with ideas, but with a deficit of results in the territories”.
It was complemented by its coalition partners and at the same time competitors in the emerging consultation of the alternative left. Reyes, nicknamed Mr. Taxes because he headed the National Directorate of Taxes and Customs (DIAN) at the beginning of the Petro government, highlighted the objective of presenting to the Congress of the Republic candidates committed to the transformation of the country. “No one wants to go back to what we had before 2022 (but) that doesn’t stop some of us from being critical,” said the former Minister of Commerce, who had more than one counterpoint with his former boss. It is a vision that includes all sectors of society, “from the business world to the peace signatories,” he stressed. Araújo, magistrate of the Constitutional Court between 2001 and 2009, for his part underlined the idea that “it is not presidents or former presidents who can say who will represent the people”.
The new coalition is the product of clashes between different sectors of progressivism, and it occurs just when the historic Pact had just achieved the objective of becoming a unified party, with Iván Cepeda as candidate leading the polls and on the horizon the consultation of the so-called Broad Front. More than one observer warns of the risk of fragmentation of the left vote between the different lists for Congress. To those of the Pact and Fuerza Ciudadana is added that of the Frente Amplio Unitario, promoted by former president Ernesto Samper and former senators and pre-candidates Roy Barreras and Clara López.
Caicedo had already expressed his concerns. “The president has been kidnapped little by little by a leadership of Pact politicians who surround him, among whom there are people from the right, political chameleons like Armando Benedetti, like Roy Barreras, who do not represent any left,” he said last month from the Plaza de Bolivar, in the heart of Bogotá. The reason for his anger was that the Historic Pact had turned its back on him during the atypical elections to choose the governor of Magdalena, his political stronghold, where in any case his candidate, Margarita Guerra, ended up winning. That didn’t calm things down. In this exchange of reproaches, Petro was the first to throw darts during a televised Council of Ministers. “I cannot be with organizations that call themselves left-wing and seek to divide the left,” said the president, referring to Fuerza Ciudadana.
The thunder box has not been closed since. “Let him show us a work that was important. He failed to satisfy the people of Magdalena,” lamented Caicedo amid his questions. He assured that the government had maintained centralism and suggested that the president be disconnected from the territories, even if he has not burned all the bridges.
A lifeline for Comunes, the party of peace signatories
The Fuerza Ciudadana list is joint with Comunes, the party resulting from the peace agreement concluded at the end of 2016. Changing bullets for votes was one of the most repeated phrases during this long negotiation to summarize the objective of removing weapons from politics. Thus, the Commons has a guaranteed ten seats – five in the Senate and five in the House of Representatives – for two Parliaments, which end next year.
So far, the polls have not forgiven their candidates for half a century of war. In the 2018 elections, the party received only 85,000 votes – and ended up abandoning the presidential candidacy of Rodrigo Londoño, Tymoshenko– and even fewer in 2022, around 21,000 in the House and 30,000 in the Senate. Far from the threshold needed to survive as a party – equivalent to 3% of valid votes cast in the Senate, which are usually over 500,000. Together, your possibilities increase.
The list brings together various social leaders, including several victims of the armed conflict who ask not to stigmatize former combatants for the sake of reconciliation. The inclusion of the Comunes makes them “proud”, says Luis Carlos Reyes: “Why do we think it is relevant that the peace signatories are part of our coalition? Because they signed the peace.”
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