Few Latin American leaders have been labeled as aggressively as Colombia’s current president, Gustavo Petro. To his supporters, he is a long-awaited reformer seeking to modernize a deeply unequal country. To his critics—especially within Colombia’s conservative establishment—he is something far more alarming: a “communist,” a threat to democracy, and a Colombian version of Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez.
But how accurate is that label? Is Gustavo Petro really a communist, or does the term function more as a political weapon than as an ideological description? A closer examination of his background, his policies, and his international positioning suggests that reality is far more nuanced than the rhetoric.
The truth is that Petro’s political trajectory more closely resembles that of a classic Latin American revolutionary, in the sense of seeking change in a land where the liberal revolution barely made a mark and where political systems are an evolution—perhaps a degeneration—of colonial feudal structures, in which social and economic inequalities become entrenched, as does the limited capacity for genuine participation in public life.
The origins of the ‘communist’ label applied to Gustavo Petro
Petro’s political past is often cited by his critics as evidence to justify a label that—clearly—they use with the intention of discrediting him, in a country where Marxism consolidated itself as a “diabolical” formula during the Cold War, if not even earlier.
As a young man in the 1970s, Petro was a member of the M-19, a left-wing urban guerrilla movement that fought the Colombian state before demobilizing in 1990. Although M-19 was revolutionary, it was nationalist and populist rather than Marxist-Leninist, and it later became a legal political movement that helped draft the 1991 Constitution.
Many of its former members went on to join centrist or even right-wing political options. Beyond the example of Angelino Garzón, who served as labor minister between 2000 and 2002 under President Andrés Pastrana, and later became vice president under the conservative Juan Manuel Santos between 2010 and 2014, there are many others who, after being members of M-19, joined the ranks of the Centro Democrático, collaborating with former president Álvaro Uribe, to this day the most right-wing political movement with real governing prospects in Colombia.
This list includes names such as Everth Bustamante, a former senator from the Democratic Center; Rosemberg Pabón, director of the government agency Dansocial under the Uribe administration; Eduardo Chávez, who worked on Álvaro Uribe’s campaign; Augusto Osorno, director of Drinking Water and Basic Sanitation at the Ministry of Environment; Carlos Alonso Lucio, a former congressman who today also aligns with Uribismo; and even Laura Pizarro, the first wife of the last leader of M-19, Carlos Pizarro, who took part in Uribe’s 2002 political campaign.
These facts show that, beyond the personal evolutions of former guerrillas, defining a guerrilla group that emerged in 1970 as a response to the blatant electoral manipulation that denied victory to former general Gustavo Rojas Pinilla in that year’s presidential elections—favoring the system’s candidate, Misael Pastrana—is both hasty and reductionist.
Even so, in a country traumatized by decades of armed conflict and left-wing insurgency, any link to guerrilla movements remains politically toxic—very toxic. Opposition figures and sectors of the media financed by Colombia’s major economic elites have used Petro’s past to portray him as an extremist, often reducing all leftist ideology to a single word that—by itself—disqualifies him in one of the hemisphere’s most conservative countries: “communism.”
At the international level, the label spreads easily. For foreign audiences unfamiliar with Colombia’s political complexity, “left-wing Latin American president” often becomes synonymous with “communist,” especially amid persistent Cold War narratives.
What communism really means—and why Petro does not fit
Classical communism advocates the abolition of private property, state ownership of the means of production, and the dismantling of capitalist markets. Petro—as he already warned during his 2022 campaign—has done none of this.
Since taking office in August of that year, Gustavo Petro has governed within Colombia’s constitutional framework. He has not nationalized major industries, eliminated private enterprise, or attempted to dismantle democratic institutions. Elections remain competitive, the press continues to be critical—often aggressively so and defending the interests of the owners who finance it, typically the country’s great fortunes—and the judiciary retains its ability to challenge the executive branch.
The arrest of two former cabinet ministers—Ricardo Bonilla and Luis Fernando Velasco—on alleged corruption charges confirms that Colombia continues to have a clear and necessary separation of powers, as also demonstrated by the government’s recent setbacks in Congress, where the conservative majority has repeatedly struck down Petro’s legislative proposals—ultimately the same campaign promises that gave him victory at the polls more than three years ago.
In reality, rather than communism, Petro’s ideological grounding aligns more closely with progressive social democracy and green politics. His rhetoric emphasizes inequality, climate change, and social justice—common themes among center-left governments in Europe and North America.
Beyond a populist rhetoric very much in line with the traditional Latin American leader, and sometimes difficult to understand from abroad, Gustavo Petro’s proposals for transformation fit squarely within Colombia’s 1991 Constitution, which defines the country as a Social State under the Rule of Law.
What Gustavo Petro’s policies actually show
Petro’s agenda offers the clearest picture of his political identity. Economically, he has focused on tax reform aimed at increasing contributions from Colombia’s wealthiest individuals and corporations—a standard policy in many capitalist democracies seeking progressive taxation for redistributive purposes.
Though controversial, this does not represent a rejection of capitalism, but rather an attempt to redistribute within it. In fact, on election night in 2022, Petro said explicitly that he did not come to destroy capitalism, but to develop it—referring to the weakness of this economic system in Colombia, which more closely resembles an evolution of colonial feudalism.
On energy and climate, Petro has pushed to reduce Colombia’s dependence on oil and coal, arguing that extractive industries have deepened inequality and environmental damage. His proposal to halt new oil exploration contracts sparked fears of economic collapse, but he has repeatedly insisted on a gradual transition, not an abrupt shutdown.
On peace and security, Petro revived negotiations with armed groups under his “Total Peace” policy. Critics see weakness; supporters argue it is a pragmatic effort to reduce violence. Despite being arguably the area with the weakest results so far, it is important to note that this approach relies on peace frameworks established by previous administrations, including conservative ones. In Colombia, all presidents—including Álvaro Uribe—have engaged in dialogue with insurgent and illegal armed groups.
None of these policies reflect a communist plan. They reflect reformist ambitions within a market economy, even as they challenge entrenched interests that have dominated Colombian public life for decades, in one of the most unequal countries in the world—where the rich are very rich and the people whose income is below —the majority—survive on white rice with limited access to land, in a country where agriculture still carries significant social and economic weight, amid large landowners, many with a history of plunder tied to armed conflict and forced displacement.
Why the label persists inside Colombia
Within Colombia, calling Petro a communist serves a political function. It mobilizes fear among business leaders, middle-class voters, and rural communities historically affected by guerrilla groups, who associate any left-wing proposal with violence, chaos, and the destruction of the existing system.
In reality, this practice simplifies complex debates into moral absolutes: order versus chaos, freedom versus dictatorship. For decades, it has served to block any democratic left-wing alternative that was systematically persecuted and exterminated, with state complicity—as demonstrated by the notorious case of the Patriotic Union, the first serious attempt to build a strong progressive coalition in the 1980s and 1990s.
The term “communist” also reflects the country’s deeply polarized political culture, where compromise is often seen as betrayal. Petro’s confrontational communication style, especially on social media, has reinforced these divisions and made it easier for his opponents to portray him as radical, even when he is not.
In any case—and this will only be fully confirmed in 2026—this long-standing practice in Colombia has been exposed as false after the country’s first genuine left-wing government, an administration that has not dismantled the foundations of the liberal system, even as it questions how those foundations have historically operated: benefiting only a privileged minority that controls the levers of the state.
How Gustavo Petro is perceived abroad
Outside Colombia, perceptions are more mixed. In Washington and Brussels, Petro is viewed with caution, but not as an ideological threat. Until the return of Donald Trump to the White House, and despite disagreements, he maintained cooperation with the United States on security and anti-drug policy, even while openly criticizing the failures of the war on drugs.
The essential difference on this controversial issue is that while Petro—and other Latin American leaders—see the drug problem as not rooted solely in the poor farmer who has no option to survive other than growing coca and selling it to the armed group that processes and exports it as cocaine, Petro insists that demand from northern countries—primarily the United States and Europe—is also a phenomenon that must be confronted.
As long as major traffickers continue to amass wealth in residences outside producing countries, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, and others suffer the terrible consequences of violence that operates in parallel with the illegal drug market.
For the Colombian president, for example, executing more than 100 alleged drug couriers in speedboats across the Caribbean and Pacific—as Trump has been doing since September—is not an effective fight against drug trafficking. Petro argues that real alternatives must be offered to producers in Colombia so they can transition to legal economies and cut off the main source of funding for illegal armed groups. These are differing ways of viewing the same problem—but disagreeing on drug policy is not communism either.
In Latin America, this new system-oriented left is often grouped with the region’s “new left,” alongside leaders such as Chile’s Gabriel Boric and Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva: reformist, democratic, and constrained by institutions rather than revolutionary.
In fact, the recent victory of Chile’s far right has been seen by many analysts as the result of excessive caution by the Boric government in implementing the social reforms it promised but failed to translate into law during its four years in office. The system, after all, is often designed so that change remains more cosmetic than real—a lesson Colombia’s left has also learned through its first experience in government.
A political label more than a reality
So, is Gustavo Petro a communist? According to any ideological or policy-based definition grounded in reality, the answer is clear: no. The label says less about Petro’s actual government and more about Colombia’s political anxieties, historical wounds, and deeply polarized discourse.
Behind many of those in Colombia who label the current president a “communist” are the same actors who claimed, when Juan Manuel Santos achieved historic peace with the FARC, that the government was handing the state over to international communism. When the plebiscite—which they managed to tip toward a “no”—took place, they predicted all kinds of disasters if what ultimately became the 2016 Havana Peace Accord were ratified. Nearly a decade later, none of the apocalyptic fears materialized.
“Impunity,” some on the right-wing opposition cried, branding Santos—one of their own—a traitor for achieving something—negotiated peace—that Álvaro Uribe himself attempted, like all his predecessors. Political needs and conveniences have little to do with truth or democratic logic, as has been shown.
Petro is a left-wing reformer operating within a capitalist democracy: ambitious, imperfect, and controversial. An egotist, according to some former allies—but far removed from the communist caricature presented by his most hardline critics.
With this simple and reductionist message, government opponents achieve something far more beneficial to their interests: in Colombia, for months now, the social reforms that voters endorsed in 2022—and that gave Gustavo Petro his electoral victory—have disappeared from public debate.
Those opposed to labor reform, to removing healthcare from the hands of a few private profiteers funded with public money, and to raising the minimum wage above a level that does not allow a dignified life in Colombia, avoid appearing before voters ahead of 2026 as the ones responsible for maintaining the status quo.
With the “communist” label, debate is avoided and a scenario of chaos and violence is projected that justifies almost everything. In the end, the real question may not be what Petro is called, but whether his policies succeed or fail—and how Colombian democracy absorbs the tension of a profound and long-postponed change.