Colombia election delivers mixed verdict on Petro as right picks Paloma Valencia for May race

BOGOTÁ, Colombia — Colombians handed President Gustavo Petro’s movement a mixed verdict in national elections on March 8, keeping his left-wing alliance as the largest force in Congress while denying it a majority and elevating a new conservative rival ahead of May’s presidential race.

A fractured Congress, a sharper political divide

With nearly all ballots counted, Petro’s Pacto Histórico coalition won close to a quarter of the seats in the Senate, remaining the single biggest bloc in the upper chamber. The right-wing Democratic Center emerged as the strongest opposition party and topped the vote for the Chamber of Representatives, while centrist parties lost ground across both houses.

At the same time, inter-party presidential primaries held alongside the congressional vote produced a clear winner on the right: Senator Paloma Valencia, a prominent figure in former President Álvaro Uribe’s Democratic Center. Her victory, with more than 3 million votes, instantly positioned her as a leading challenger to leftist frontrunner Iván Cepeda in the May 31 presidential election.

The result leaves Colombia with a fragmented but more polarized Congress and a presidential field crowded with left- and right-wing contenders but a weakened center. It also narrows the room for Petro to advance his ambitious agenda of peace talks with armed groups, sweeping economic reforms and a push for a constitutional overhaul.

“The Pact swept the election, but it is not a majority,” Petro acknowledged after the vote, signaling that his government will need to negotiate with rivals to advance legislation.

Turnout and seat counts

About 20.5 million Colombians cast ballots, according to preliminary figures from the National Civil Registry—roughly 50% of registered voters and a slight increase from recent legislative contests. Voters chose 102 elected senators and 181 members of the Chamber of Representatives, plus several special seats for indigenous communities, victims of the conflict and opposition parties.

In the Senate, Pacto Histórico increased its representation to around 25 seats, up from 20 in 2022, consolidating its status as the main force on the left. The Democratic Center secured 17 Senate seats, becoming the largest single opposition bloc. Traditional parties such as the Liberals and Conservatives, and green and centrist formations, saw their share of seats and votes shrink.

Political scientist Yan Basset of the Universidad del Rosario said the results limit Petro’s room to pursue major institutional change.

“The left won the most seats, but only around a quarter of the chamber,” Basset said. “Without close to two-thirds support, there is no path to the constitutional changes that part of the government was discussing.”

In the lower house, the Democratic Center captured the largest overall vote share, while Pacto Histórico and other left-wing lists performed strongly in several regions thanks to Colombia’s proportional representation system and regional constituencies. The overall effect is a Congress where no bloc approaches an absolute majority and cross-party alliances will be essential.

Petro’s reform agenda faces tougher math

For Petro, elected in 2022 as Colombia’s first leftist president, the new balance of power complicates efforts to push through a series of contentious reforms. His government has already raised the minimum wage sharply, proposed major changes to labor rules and pensions, and advanced a plan to remove private insurers from managing public health funds.

Economist Jorge Restrepo warned that popular measures could strain public finances without broader tax changes.

“Colombia is no longer immune to populism,” Restrepo said. “A fragmented Congress makes it harder to approve the kind of comprehensive reforms that would make these policies sustainable.”

Primaries reshape the May presidential race

In the Gran Consulta por Colombia, a broad center-right and right-wing coalition, Valencia decisively defeated a field of conservative and liberal figures, collecting more than 3 million votes and nearly half of all ballots cast across the three consultations. The senator—granddaughter of former President Guillermo León Valencia—campaigned on reversing Petro’s economic policies and hardening security in the face of armed groups and organized crime.

“This mandate is clear,” Valencia told supporters in Bogotá. “More than five million Colombians have said they do not want a country sunk in class hatred and in statism that kills private initiative and entrepreneurship.”

On the center-left, former Bogotá mayor Claudia López won the Consulta de las Soluciones with about 92% of ballots cast within her primary, but those votes accounted for only a small share of overall participation—highlighting the center’s difficulty in mobilizing support.

In the smaller Frente por la Vida consultation, ex-senate president and peace negotiator Roy Barreras emerged as the standard-bearer of an alternative left bloc distinct from Pacto Histórico. His candidacy adds another progressive option to a field that already includes Cepeda, chosen in an internal Pacto Histórico vote in October.

Cepeda—a senator and human-rights advocate closely allied with Petro—currently leads most early presidential polls. On the right, Valencia’s strong showing complicates the path of ultra-conservative lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella, who had been polling near the top before Sunday but now faces pressure to avoid splitting the conservative vote.

Security, scrutiny and claims of irregularities

The elections unfolded under heavy security and intense scrutiny. Colombia’s Electoral Observation Mission (MOE) had warned that 339 municipalities were at high or extreme risk of electoral violence or irregularities linked to illegal armed groups, particularly in conflict-affected areas where special “peace seats” are elected.

During the campaign, the Ombudsman’s Office documented hundreds of threats against social leaders and candidates. The National Liberation Army (ELN) declared a unilateral cease-fire from March 7 to 10, saying it did not want to interfere with the vote while peace talks with the government continue.

Election day passed without large-scale disruptions, but MOE recorded more than 500 complaints of alleged irregularities, including vote-buying, illegal campaign activity near polling stations and logistical problems, especially in remote regions. On March 9, a spokesperson for the U.N. secretary-general congratulated Colombians for their “peaceful participation” and condemned “attacks and threats” against the electoral process.

Vote counting, tech contractors and AI misinformation

The credibility of the vote-counting system quickly became another point of tension. Colombia uses a rapid, unofficial pre-count on election night, followed by a slower official tally that has legal force. As partial results were released, Petro used social media to stress that the pre-count “has no legal effect” and drew attention to the role of private contractor Thomas Greg & Sons in handling electoral technology.

He later called on “lawyers with experience in electoral matters” to join official scrutiny commissions to check for discrepancies between preliminary and final counts. Electoral authorities have urged patience, saying accuracy must take priority over speed.

The concerns surfaced amid a broader battle over information integrity. In the days before the vote, an image circulated widely on social networks appeared to show Petro voting in a primary consultation, despite his public calls for supporters to focus only on congressional ballots. Fact-checkers later determined the image had been manipulated with artificial intelligence to add a consultation ballot.

Surveys conducted ahead of the elections suggested that nearly four in five Colombians had encountered false or misleading information in the past year, and that many were unsure how to identify a fake report—underscoring vulnerabilities in a polarized media environment.

What comes next

Beyond domestic debates, the new Congress and the next president will shape Colombia’s stance on drug policy, migration and relations with Venezuela at a time of renewed pressure from the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump to step up coca eradication and security cooperation.

Whoever wins in May, analysts say, will have to navigate a legislature where no force can govern alone and where any major decision—from deepening Petro’s “Total Peace” negotiations to rolling back social reforms—will require uneasy alliances.

“The elections did not deliver a mandate for rupture,” Basset said. “They delivered a mandate for negotiation, in a country that is more mobilized, more polarized and still learning to trust its institutions.”