 For more videos on people's struggles, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. Parliamentary elections were held in Colombia on March 13, two months ahead of a crucial presidential election. The leftist historic pact achieved major gains, ending up as the leading party in the Senate and second in the Chamber of Representatives. The elections were held amid mass dissatisfaction with the right-wing government of Ivanduk and massive violence against activists and social leaders. On the same day, presidential primaries were also held for each of the parties and blocs. Gustavo Petro, the progressive former Mayor of Bogota, emerged as the leading candidate for the historic pact and will contest the presidential election. However, these parliamentary elections significant for Colombia. What agenda does Gustavo Petro present to the people and what has been his record? Zoe Alexandra of People's Dispatch explains. Hi, this is Zoe and welcome back to Dispatchers from Latin America. Today we're going to talk about Colombia and the legislative elections that were held on Sunday, March 13. So these were of course the first elections held in the country since the beginning of the pandemic. These elections are held in a moment of great turmoil in Colombian society. Iván Duque, the current President of Colombia, is one of the most unpopular leaders not only in Colombia but across the continent. He has extremely low approval ratings and this is largely due to his handling of the pandemic, the lack of care for the Colombian population in terms of providing financial assistance, social assistance throughout this pandemic and of course crucial public health measures. Colombia has been one of the most hardest hit countries in the region in terms of COVID deaths and COVID infections and this has really had an impact on his approval rating. Of course in the second hand there's on the other hand there's of course the pressing issue of the continuation of the armed conflict in Colombia. There has been very high rates of violence in the territories that Colombian leaders had promised after the signing of the peace agreements in 2016 that all of this violence would magically disappear and under Iván Duque this violence has not only not disappeared but has increased the number of social leaders of human rights defenders and a former guerrilla combatants of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia has risen to an alarming rate. Over 1,200 of these people have been killed since 2016 and in the last couple years the numbers of massacres that have been happening to the civilian population has been astounding over 90 last year and this year there's already a worrying number and so this has really put these elections in a very important moment where people are really demanding change they're no longer sitting by they're no longer tolerating the status quo this was really expressed through the mass social uprising that took place April May June of 2021 where hundreds of thousands of Colombians of all ages across economic sectors across you know the entire country took to the streets in rejection of the tax reform bill but really this mobilization blossomed into so much more so in this context is when these legislative elections take place this is the first phase of the electoral process in Colombia in May Colombians will go to the polls to participate in the first round of the presidential elections there will be electing their president and vice president for the next four years and most likely they will go to a second round which will take place in June and so you know these are also going to be really crucial and I think what was seen in this first phase of the electoral process which not only saw people being able to vote on who would make up the legislative body the senate and the house of representatives but also the votes were cast for the internal coalition consultations so who would be elected to be the vice president and presidential candidate of each coalition and each ticket so first we will go to the results of the legislative elections so a very important alliance was formed by left leader Gustavo Petro Gustavo Petro is a former guerrilla fighter from the M19 movement he rose to prominence in institutional politics over the last decade he was mayor of Bogotá extremely popular for his social programs for supporting education creating employment programs and generally attempting to shift towards a more city-controlled and city-funded programs bringing in very important operations now not in the private sector but in the public sector and so Gustavo Petro has been growing in prominence in 2018 he also ran for president and he had a very historic number of votes against Uribe's Alvaro Uribe's Candida Iván Duque who ended up winning but very important start and this really gave him momentum to continue building and now we're seeing kind of the fruition of all these years building this coalition and building this alliance which today is called the historic pact and it brings together a diversity of parties from across the left in Colombia the historic left with the you know parties like polo democrático with the comunis parties which is the the party that emerged from the demobilization of the revolution and armed force of Colombia and several other left-wing parties that have come together in this historic pact to put an end to Uribe's mode to put an end to the years and decades of the bipartisan unity pact which has seen them you know taking turns in power over the past decades and never given a voice and never given a space to the people to progressive forces to have a say in institutional politics so this is a huge step forward the historic pact in the senate of Colombia they won 16 seats this is the top tied with the conservative party which also won 16 seats important to note that the democratic center which before had a very important majority in the senate as as at 14 seats and then in the house of representatives the liberal party has the largest share of votes with 33 seats and the pacto historico the historic pact follows it with 28 seats so this is very important this is giving the historic pact an important important share of votes in these legislative bodies these legislative bodies of course are key many of the anti-people neoliberal legislation Ivan Duque was attempting to pass over the last several years he was able to do so in many cases because of the control of conservatives over the legislative body so this definitely marks a shift this definitely marks a step forward for people's movements for left forces in Colombia they will have more say in what happens in politics and then finally who is going to be running for president so Gustavo Petro was part of the consultation for the historic pact and he got a large share of the votes with 4,340,000 and this means that he will be the presidential candidate for the historic pact in the right wing ticket is likely to be Federico Gutierrez and he will be most likely representing the conservative and right wing interests of the Colombian sectors in the upcoming presidential elections a very important thing to note is that Francia Marquez who's from the polo democrático she won 757,000 votes in this internal consultation for the historic pact and I think this is extremely important to note because Francia Marquez is a leader from Cauca she works with the process of black communities she was very active in resisting mining projects in her territories and so this very large show of votes will be is a representation of the strength of social movements in Colombia and the will for social movements to have a real voice knowing that it's not just enough to have you know politicians who are on the left but really now part of the institutional left it's very important to have the voice of social movements the voice of Afro-Colombians in this process it is it has not been confirmed whether she will be the vice presidential candidate with Gustavo Petro as presidential candidate but many people who supported her and support the historic pact are calling for this either way it's clear that a change is underway in Colombia things are going to get a little different the grip of the right wing and conservative powers over institutional politics in Colombia is going to be loosened this does not mean that there will be immediate change but it definitely means a breath of fresh air this will of course also have an enormous impact impact in the region itself Colombia has been the historic ally of the United States not only serving as a home for military bases and training and military relationships and partnerships but also it has been a very very good ally to the United States in its hybrid war against Venezuela serving as training grounds for mercenaries and giving political support in all instances of international institutions and supporting this crusade of Washington against Venezuela so having more progressives in institutional power at this moment in Colombia will of course signify a shift in the attitude of the Colombian government towards Venezuela and will hopefully bring more stability to the region will Colombia join instances such as alba tcp the platform of progressive governments led by Venezuela and Cuba at this moment it is unclear but there is a wind of changing in Latin America we see Boris we see Xiomara we see Alberto Fernandez Lula as having very very favorable voter intention polls so it is going to be interesting to follow what's going to happen in the next several months Gustavo Petro is polling very very high as presidential candidate will this transit to a victory we have to wait to find out