I'm John Baxter. This is the New World Report with Professor

Evangelist of the U.S. Army War College. Columbia, Bogota. Columbia

opposition candidates swept elections for mayors, governors, and regional law

makers, dealing a defeat to President Gustavo Petro elected last year.

Writers calls him the leftist coalition in votes that analysts call a referendum

on Mr. Petro's government. The rotis goes on to qualify. Petro, a 63-year-old

economist who was elected in August of last year, is the first leftist

president in Columbia's history. He has low poll ratings and the outcome,

Sunday's outcome, it will influence the 2026 presidential election.

Professor, just when we thought Petro had made common cause with Mr. Madura,

Venezuela, with Mr. Lola de Silva, Brazil, with Amla of Mexico, and it was high

five in a friendly environment for the pink tide, so-called, of the Americas, a

rebuke by the mayor's races in three large cities. Medellín and Calei were

tune I noted because those regions were very much part of Mr. Petro's

success, and now the opposition candidates have emerged. Is this a rejection of

Petro this early? Why or how have the Colombian people moved so dramatically

within a year? Well, John, I think it's important to understand the

context that the, really, that the wave that brought the Petro in was driven

by a broad frustration by Colombians of conditions. Things had gotten worse

in terms of the situation with narco violence and corruption. Certainly,

Colombia had a very difficult experience with COVID. There were unpopular tax

reforms in security and countryside, but essentially what happened is that

...