The internal consultation held yesterday by the Historic Pact produced a figure few expected: More than 2,750,000 people went to the polls to choose the ruling coalition’s presidential candidate, according to the Registry Office. Beyond who won the race — Ivan Cepeda, ultimately proclaimed the victor — the key fact is the scale of participation.
That figure not only represents an organizational success for an internal process that was nearly canceled for legal and logistical reasons; it also symbolizes a deeper political phenomenon: The Historic Pact mobilized more voters than it did in the March 2022 legislative elections, when it was still a coalition and not a consolidated party.
If participation on that scale were repeated in the 2026 general elections, the Pact would become Colombia’s leading party in terms of votes. What is remarkable is that, in this case, it was not an election open to the general electorate, but an internal, voluntary, and limited consultation. Summoning nearly 3 million citizens in that context amounts to a display of political strength rarely seen in the country’s recent history.
Nevertheless, the majorities the left will need to successfully pass its reformist proposals will require mobilizing even more people, so triumphalism — though understandable given the previously predicted failure — should give way to a determined focus on the elections that, in four months, will renew Congress.
At best, the Pact’s consultation shows that a significant part of the electorate still identifies with the transformative project that brought Gustavo Petro to the presidency in 2022. At worst, it may suggest that the Colombian left risks closing in on its own base — effectively mobilizing the convinced but failing to sufficiently broaden its social and political reach, something it undoubtedly needs if it truly intends not only to reach power but to transform the country as it aims to do.
Colombia’s elections: The Historic Pact and the lesson of its own strength
Much of the political commentary in recent weeks in Colombia predicted low turnout in the internal consultation held yesterday, Sunday, Oct. 26, to select the presidential candidate of the leftist Historic Pact, as well as to determine the order of the coalition’s closed lists for the Senate and House of Representatives in 2026.
Once again, the forecasts predicting failure for the Colombian ruling party did not come true, and yesterday’s mobilization — held amid an unfavorable context due to administrative hurdles to voting and widespread confusion among citizens — was a success for supporters of the still-sitting president, who seek to extend petrismo beyond Gustavo Petro himself.
However, the ruling coalition must now confirm not only its leadership within the progressive field but also its governing capacity before a citizenry that, while recognizing the historic merit of breaking decades of conservative and liberal dominance, has expressed growing doubts about its effectiveness.
The major promises of Petro’s project — labor, health care, pension, and agrarian reform — have been blocked in Congress, where the Pact, despite holding the largest left-wing parliamentary representation in history, has failed to build a stable majority.
Here lies one of the most striking paradoxes of Colombia’s current political cycle: The ruling party holds more electoral than legislative power, and more symbolic than institutional strength. Its transformative momentum, which continues to mobilize millions in the streets, dissipates in the halls of the Capitol, where alliances shift weekly and bills fade amid cross-vetoes, delaying tactics, and tensions within the government bloc itself.
Petro’s Constituent Assembly will need more support in Congress
President Petro himself has acknowledged this difficulty. On more than one occasion, he has lamented that congressional resistance obstructs his reform program and has raised the possibility of a National Constituent Assembly as a way to reconfigure the country’s political power.
But the message from yesterday’s internal consultation is ambivalent: On one hand, progressive citizens remain active and organized; on the other, there still doesn’t seem to be enough national consensus for an institutional transformation of that scale.
In this context, next March’s legislative elections will be crucial — and Petro knows it. It will not be enough for the Historic Pact to reaffirm its electoral leadership; it must translate it into a functional majority that allows it to govern.
The partial failure of this first left-wing administration has not been a lack of votes, but a lack of votes where they truly matter: in Congress and local governments. The 2023 regional elections already showed a worrying setback for the ruling coalition, with the loss of several key mayoralties and governorships.
The Historic Pact therefore faces a crossroads. It has reasons to celebrate but also to be concerned. Sunday’s consultation proved that its base remains alive, mobilized, and committed, but it also reminded that political power is not built solely on loyal militancy, but on the ability to persuade and govern.
The left, which for decades was in opposition, has proven it can win power democratically; what it has yet to prove is that it can exercise it effectively and build a lasting social majority. In 2022, the goal was to win the presidency — something that was ultimately achieved — but although a solid congressional base was built, legislative success was not enough to accompany with laws the proposals of Colombia’s first truly left-wing government.
Overcoming social frustration in Colombia
Beyond names and candidacies, the major question this consultation leaves is whether the Pact can learn from the limits of its own success. The massive turnout can be read as a mandate for continuity of the progressive project, but also as a warning: Public expectations remain high, and patience is limited.
If the ruling coalition mistakes internal support for national hegemony, it risks repeating the error of those who believed they had already won it all just as they were beginning.
Because in Colombia, the prevailing social mood — beyond the sharp polarization between supporters and critics of the government — is one of widespread frustration at seeing that, after more than three years of Petro’s administration, promises of change and deep reform remain unfulfilled, due both to the lack of congressional majorities and to internal disorganization within the government.
The Historic Pact has proven it remains the country’s main organized political force, with both mobilization capacity and a compelling narrative. Colombia has achieved the unthinkable: Building a solid base capable of advancing democratic left-wing proposals that move the masses to the polls.
However, the path toward 2026 will require more than ideological fervor: It will demand management, concrete results, and an alliance strategy that can turn its social energy into effective political power. Only then can it move from being the movement that symbolizes change to the party that delivers it.
Because, in the end, true political strength is not measured solely in votes but in the ability to turn those votes into tangible realities. And that remains the unfinished task of the Historic Pact and Colombia’s left in power.