Bogotá (AFP) – The Colombian government withdrew this Thursday the proposal to promote a national constituent assembly to include social and anti-corruption reforms in the Magna Carta, after the defeat of the left in the first presidential round.

First modification: 06/05/2026 - 10:15

The outgoing president Gustavo Petro has strongly defended the constituent assembly to avoid Congress's blockages to his social and economic reforms. The proposal was highly criticized by the opposition, which accused him of wanting to modify the Constitution to allow and seek re-election.

"The electoral decision reflected in the last elections (...) does not allow the constituent to be convened," Petro, the first leftist president in the country's history, wrote in X.

The decision comes in the middle of the presidential campaign after Petro's political dolphin, the popular senator Iván Cepeda, narrowly lost to the far-right candidate Abelardo de la Espriella in the first presidential round.

Both will meet in a runoff on June 21 in which De la Espriella has an advantage, according to polls.

The result "has left open the door of a return to the methods of violent fascism (...). I support the determination that the citizen committee for the National Constituent Assembly has made by suspending the process of collecting signatures," added Petro, who cannot run for re-election by law.

The surprise victory of the far-right comes in the midst of the worst wave of violence in the last decade in the country and with increasing fiscal pressure due to the high spending of the left-wing government.

Petro will leave office on August 7, after four years in office with high investment in social programs and the largest increase in the minimum wage, popular measures among the working class.

The leftist promised during the campaign that he was not going to modify the 1991 Constitution, but he changed his speech and in May he began to collect signatures.

The proposed reforms were focused on social, economic, environmental issues and related to the implementation of peace in the country, marked by decades of conflict.

© 2026 AFP

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