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1 [1] (July 12, 2018)

handle is hein.crs/crsmthzzbac0001 and id is 1 raw text is: *' Congressional Research Service Inftori the legislative debate since 1914 Colombia's 2018 Elections Colombians elected a new congress in March 2018 and a new president in June 2018. Because no presidential candidate won more than 50% of the vote on May 27, 2018, as required for a victory in the first round, a second-round runoff was held June 17. That contest resulted in a victory for a popular far-right candidate, IvAn Duque, who will assume office on August 7, 2018. Figure I. Presidential Second-Round Vote Results lwan Ducue DEMOCR~AT A MMI AND 4 / COLOMABIA HUM-,ANA kil .... 42% Source: CRS. Notes: Drawn from data in http://www.eltiempo.com/elecciones- colombia-201 8/presidenciales/mapa-de-resultados-de-la-segunda- vuelta-presidencial-en-colombia-2320 10. Representing the Democratic Center (CD) party, which had gained seats in the March congressional elections and won the most seats in the Colombian Senate (see Figure 2), Duque was carried to victory with almost 54% of the vote. Runner-up Gustavo Petro, a leftist former mayor of BogotA, a former Colombian Senator, and once a member of the M- 19 guerilla insurgency, nevertheless did better than any leftist candidate in a presidential race in the past century; Petro won 8 million votes and nearly 42% of the votes cast. Around 4.2% were protest votes, signifying Colombian voters who cast blank ballots. Looking Ahead to a Duque Presidency Duque, who will become president at the age of 42, served a single term in the Colombian Senate. Duque was partially educated in the United States and worked for the Inter- American Development Bank in Washington, DC, for several years. He was the handpicked candidate of former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, who served for two terms, ending in 2010. Uribe, who opposed many of the policies of his successor, Juan Manuel Santos, is the leader of the CD party (a party he founded in opposition to the policies of two-term President Santos) and a prominent CD senator who was reelected in March 2018. Duque will inherit an economy that is projected to grow by 2.5% in 2018 but may be strained by the costs associated with implementing a peace accord signed with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a leftist guerrilla organization that had engaged in a violent insurgency against the Colombian government since the mid- 1960s. Initiatives to enact the peace accord, if fully implemented, are projected to cost $45 billion over the next 15 years. Colombian voters did not consider peace a key electoral issue. Polls taken throughout the year leading up to the elections revealed that corruption, citizen security, health care, unemployment, poverty, and, increasingly, concerns about the growing flood of refugees from Venezuela were bigger voter priorities. Peace, including negotiations with the country's second-oldest and now largest insurgent group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), ranked near the bottom. Some observers maintain that support for peace programs in Colombia is important not to benefit former FARC or other demobilized combatants but to fulfill promises the government made in the peace accords to the country's 8.6 million victims of the five-decade conflict. Duque won the backing of the Wake Up Coalition, consisting of some voters who had opposed an earlier version of the Santos-backed peace accord in an October 2016 referendum, along with others who viewed the ratified accord with the FARC as too lenient; wanted to see some more business-friendly, orthodox economic policies, including reductions in taxes; and supported the commitment by President-elect Duque to take steps to contain the government of NicolAs Maduro in neighboring Venezuela. In the runoff campaign, some parties that had backed the peace accord with the FARC, such as the Liberal Party, announced their support for Duque because Petro was deemed too far left. Several milestones in peace implementation have been achieved, including disarming the FARC and ratifying the Special Jurisdiction for Peace-the transitional justice regime for judicial proceedings against those who committed gross human rights violations and war crimes. Nevertheless, key sections of the agreement remain unaddressed, leaving completion of its implementation to the incoming president and new congress. Duque has pledged to alter some elements of the accord that remain controversial, even though the Colombian Congress ratified the accord in November 2016 and the Colombian Constitutional Court has ruled that it must be implemented over the next three terms, or 12 years. In 2016 and 2017, Colombia's coca cultivation and cocaine production exceeded previous records. In 2016, according to the U.S. government, Colombia cultivated 188,000 hectares of coca; in 2017, it cultivated an unprecedented 209,000 hectares of coca. Even with Colombia's economic stability and improving security, cocaine exports, primarily to the U.S. market, are a major concern. In September 2017, www.crsgovi 7-5700 0 July 12, 2018

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