President Gustavo Petro said Sunday that he would become the leader of Colombia’s largest political party on the left, the Historic Pact.
In a tweet, Petro responded to Senator Ivan Cepeda, who proposed him as party president at a political rally in the city of Tunja on Saturday.
Petro said he would “accept the proposal of my party after surrendering power to the far-right President-elect Abelardo de la Espriella.
The president said he would first go “on a vacation I deserve and didn’t have during four years of governance.”
We will work toward peace and social justice and for a national agreement that prevents violent confrontation among Colombians, and we will seek to contribute to the democratic stability of the countries that Simon Bolívar liberated.
President Gustavo Petro
The Historic Pact party was formed in March from a coalition of multiple parties that have long supported the political careers of Petro and Cepeda.
Following a significant electoral victory, the party became the largest of Colombia and will assume 25 of 103 seats in the Senate.
Petro’s former party, Colombia Humana, contributed 12 senators to the collective.
The president started his political career while being a member of the M-19 guerrilla group, which demobilized in 1990.
Petro was elected to the House of Representatives in 1998 an became a senator in 2006.
Between 2012 and 2015, the president was mayor of the capital Bogota.
Petro has been the most popular and powerful leftist politician since the violent death of Liberal Party leader Jorge Eliecer Gaitan in 1948, and was sanctioned by the US Government amid his opposition to the genocide in Gaza.
The president has insisted that his successor won the June elections through fraud and has refused to recognize De la Espriella as his successor.
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