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What does the path to the presidency look like for Colombia's presidential candidates? Which way is Colombia leaning? Get insight into the results of the first round of Colombia's presidential elections and the outlook for the runoff with the slide presentation and replay from our recent w...

Upcoming webinar - Colombia elections: Outlook for the runoff

COLOMBIA · Report · 04 Jun 2026

Date: 5 Jun 2026 Time: 10:00 AM EDT What does the path to the presidency look like for Colombia's presidential candidates? Which way is Colombia leaning? Following the first round of Colombia's presidential elections, join us for our live Zoom webinar featuring GlobalSource Partners' Col...

ELECTIONS IN COLOMBIA: THE FIRST ROUND WAS A HARSH BLOW FOR THE GOVERNMENT AND ITS CANDIDATE

COLOMBIA · In Brief · 31 May 2026

Today, Colombia held its first round elections to choose President for the Constitutional period 2026-2030. Without hesitation, the big news about this election day was the win of the hard-right, outsider candidate Abelardo De La Espriella (ABDLE), with more 670.000 votes above the government’s c...

Don’t count Cepeda out yet

COLOMBIA · Report · 29 May 2026

Election Day is finally upon us. You hear talk about presidential candidates and voting strategies everywhere, peppered with the latest polling results. As we approach the moment of truth – the first round of voting is on May 31 -- we are slightly more optimistic about the electoral outcome: Left...

Election forecast: cloudy

COLOMBIA · Report · 01 May 2026 · 1 response

Deteriorating fiscal balances, weakening investment dynamics and rising external vulnerabilities are being driven by a structural imbalance: the government has increasingly absorbed excess savings from both the domestic private sector and foreign sources to finance its growing fiscal deficit. By ...

Still betting on an opposition win

COLOMBIA · Report · 30 Mar 2026 · 3 responses

The congressional election results are the main source of worry for the political opposition camp in the presidential race. We analyze the percentage increase in votes cast for President Gustavo Petro’s Pacto Histórico candidates in the main cities, responsible for 41% of votes in Colombia. The i...

Notes on the March 8th Colombian Congressional and Primaries elections

COLOMBIA · In Brief · 09 Mar 2026

1. At 10:15 pm Colombia time, according to Bulletin 37 of the National Electoral Registry, and with 98.4% of polling stations reported, the leftist Pacto Histórico is the winner of the congressional elections, 4,38 million votes for the Senate and 1.9 million votes for the House of Representative...

The last peace-of-mind week ever?

COLOMBIA · In Brief · 04 Mar 2026

So far this century, leftist governments in Latin America have typically lasted between 10 and 18 years, with Chávez – Maduro - Rodriguez outlasting this average, reaching 26 years (Table 1). Hence, Gustavo Petro needs to demonstrate that he and his heir can emulate his peers and reach at least 8...

How come the fiscal balance improved in 2025?

COLOMBIA · In Brief · 01 Mar 2026

The Finance Ministry published fiscal data for Q4-2025 and for 2025 as a whole. The results could not be more discouraging. Even though the deficit went down from 6.7% of GDP in 2024 to 6.4% in 2025, a cursory look at the details behind this result (shown in Table 1) left us with nothing positive...

Handing out the pre-election pork

COLOMBIA · Report · 27 Feb 2026 · 1 response

Colombia began experimenting with wealth taxes at the beginning of this century. Wealth taxes have been criticized because they represent double income taxation: once when it’s produced, and again as assets. This may discourage savings and capital accumulation. But successive governments and mini...

Implications of a suspended minimum wage hike

COLOMBIA · In Brief · 13 Feb 2026

The State Council, one of Colombia’s high courts, issued a ruling on February 13th, suspending the effects of Decree 1469, issued by the Petro administration on December 29th of last year. In other words, the State Council has decided to suspend the 23% increase in the minimum wage. This ruling c...

Swallowing frogs, kissing the ring, and doing the responsible thing

COLOMBIA · Report · 06 Feb 2026 · 1 response

Why did Donald Trump want to meet with Gustavo Petro in Washington? Probably because it was cheaper to scold Petro face to face; to ask for real commitment and actions that comply with the U.S. agenda; and to bring him to the White House to kiss the ring, instead of intimidating him with the U.S....

January 2026 Colombia slide deck: Moderate optimism but plenty of noise until the run-off election in June

COLOMBIA · Presentation · 23 Jan 2026

Read the slide presentation prepared by Juan Carlos Echeverry, Andres Escobar and Mauricio Santamaría with charts on the most recent poll results for the coming elections, the current state of the fiscal accounts, and an overview of Colombia's economy and prospects.

Where to invest your pension savings

COLOMBIA · In Brief · 22 Jan 2026

The government published a draft decree that would limit mandatory pension fund (AFPs) investments abroad to 30% of their total portfolio across all risk profiles. Within three years, pension funds would have to reduce their maximum allocation to foreign assets to 35%, and within five years to th...

Extravagant minimum wage increase and its consequences

COLOMBIA · In Brief · 30 Dec 2025 · 5 responses

President Petro just announced a 23% increase in the minimum wage (MW) for 2026, setting it at COP $2 million including the compulsory transportation allowance. When all the non-wage costs are taken into account, the gross cost of an employee earning one minimum wage will be around COP 2.8 millio...