When the former leftist guerrilla Gustavo Petro ran for president of Colombia in 2022, a common refrain could be heard among his critics. If Petro wins, they warned, it would be Colombia’s last democratic election. As a cautionary tale, they pointed to neighboring Venezuela, which became a hard-left dictatorship under Hugo Chávez and his successors.
Petro won, but the pessimists were wrong: Colombia is set to inaugurate a new president this week. And despite Petro’s rejection of the recent election results and his efforts to have it annulled, claiming that his protégé was the real winner, there’s no evidence Petro intended to stay in power. Colombia’s democracy survived.
Still, that doesn’t mean the concerns about Petro were entirely groundless. Old-fashioned coups have become rare in Latin America in recent decades. The new wave of authoritarian rulers gains power initially by campaigning for it, securing it at the ballot box and then manipulating the levers of power to perpetuate their rule.