Gustavo Francisco Petro Urrego[c] ODB ODSC ODIC (Latin American Spanish: [ɡusˈtaβo fɾanˈsisko ˈpetɾo uˈreɣo]; born 19 April 1960) is a Colombian politician who is the 34th and current president of Colombia since 2022.

He led the M-19's seizure of land to house 400 poor families who had been forcibly displaced by paramilitary groups, and then contributed to the construction of what would become the Bolívar 83 neighborhood.

He then went underground and allied with Carlos Pizarro, one of the main commanders of the M-19, insisting on the need for a negotiated political solution to the Colombian armed conflict and on the transition to a Constituent Assembly.

[26] In July 1994, he met with Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Chávez (just released from prison after the February 1992 Venezuelan coup d'état attempt) during an event on Bolivarian thought at the Simón Rodríguez Cultural Foundation in Bogotá, directed by José Cuesta, Petro's parliamentary assistant.

During a two-hour speech, he revealed a variety of documents demonstrating the relationship between members of the Colombian military, the current political leadership, narcotraffickers and paramilitary groups.

[17] During Petro's administration, measures such as the prohibition on the carrying of firearms were advanced, which led to the reduction of the homicide rate, reaching the lowest figure of the last two decades;[43][44] interventions were carried out by the police in El Bronx sector of the city, where seizures of drugs and weapons were made; the Women's Secretariat was created; the LGBTI Citizenship Center was inaugurated; and 49 centers for birth control and abortion care were also created in cases permitted by law.

[58] The subway plans contracted by Petro's administration were discarded by his successor Enrique Peñalosa, who opted for an elevated railway system with lower capital expenditure and greater coverage.

[60][61] On 9 December 2013, he was removed from his seat and banned from political activity for 15 years,[62] by Inspector General Alejandro Ordóñez Maldonado, following the sanctions stipulated by the law.

[citation needed] Petro's platform emphasized support for universal health care, public banking, a rejection of proposals to expand fracking and mining in favor of investing in clean energy, and land reform.

[86] He proposed combatting Colombia's cocaine trade with the growth of legal marijuana, and has opposed extraditions of accused drug criminals to the United States.

Petro cancelled rallies in Colombiaʼs coffee region in early May 2022 after his security team uncovered an alleged plot by the La Cordillera gang.

[88] In response to this and many other similar situations, 90 elected officials and prominent individuals from over 20 countries signed an open letter expressing concern and condemnation of attempts of political violence against Márquez and Petro.

Signatories of the letter included former Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa, American linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky and member of the French National Assembly Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

Proposals from Petro to change the nation's economic model were criticized for increasing taxes on unproductive landowners and for upsetting oil and coal investors by his platform to move to clean energy.

[103] He spent the month and a half between his election and his inauguration negotiating with centrist and right-wing political parties to build a majority in Congress, where the left had a minority in both houses.

Human rights activist Leonor Zalabata was named ambassador to the United Nations, making her the first indigenous person to be appointed to the post, which until now has always been held by career diplomats.

[110][111] Petro announced plans to resume peace negotiations with the National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas, which had been suspended after the 2019 Bogotá car bombing, where more than 20 cadets at a police academy were killed.

The protests continued on 20 June 2023 in major cities, motivated by his political agenda, the alleged drug-money involved on his 2022 presidential campaign, and accusations of possibly illegal interceptions to civilians by close members of his cabinet.

[119] A scandal emerged nicknamed "Nannygate" and involving recordings of his ambassador in Venezuela, Armando Benedetti, speaking with Petro's Chief of Staff, Laura Sarabia, over possible illegal financing and threats of revealing compromising information on campaign running.

They do not deserve impunity, let alone billions," recalling that the report of the Truth Commission confirms the historical responsibility of the ranchers in paramilitarism, displacement and land plundering.

[135] Diplomats from both countries reached a deal which has seen Colombia send its own air force planes to collect the migrants, a process that Petro said ensured they were treated "with dignity" and without being handcuffed.

[136][137] The U.S. government did make concessions to Colombia by agreeing not to handcuff and photograph the deportees, and dispatching Homeland Security staffers, instead of military officers, as flight escorts.

[138] Earlier in the dispute, president Petro criticised the use of US military for deportation flights, and noted, "We are the opposite of the Nazis," and that he would never carry out a raid to return handcuffed Americans to the US.

[141] The president's daughter Andrea Petro posted, "For every Colombian deported we will return a gringo from the Poblado," seemingly implying to the 2024 extradition request to the US of an American.

[142][143] In a widely recognized speech before the United Nations General Assembly on September 20, 2022, Petro asked the question "What is more poisonous for humanity, cocaine, coal or oil?"

He said the "addiction to irrational power, profit and money” being at the heart of the climate crisis and called the war on drugs a failure, accusing the global north of turning a blind eye to the destruction of the Amazon rainforest.

[153][154] Guaidó reproached the lack of recognition of his interim government, and responded in a press conference: "I would have expected that his first decision would not have been to approach one who today shelters world terrorism in Venezuela".

[155] On 28 September 2022, Colombia's ambassador to the Organization of American States, Luis Ernesto Vargas, declared that he would condemn human rights violations in Nicaragua when necessary, but that he would prioritize the integration of the countries in the region.

[164] To placate the criticism that feminists made of him at the time, Petro published the photo of the Christmas gift that his daughter Sofía gave him: a book titled "Feminism for beginners".

[172] In August 2022, Petro proposed decriminalizing the production of cocaine and marijuana, declaring "It is time for a new international convention that accepts that the war on drugs has failed.