Colombia chooses its economic course in the runoff between two opposing models

President Gustavo Petro ends four years in office with rsupport in popular sectors for the reduction of poverty, the strengthening of public education, the decrease in unemployment and the record increase in the minimum wage.

But the country’s first center-left president It is also questioned by the increase in public spendingoffensive comments against businessmen and the worst fiscal deficit in Latin America after Brazil, according to ECLAC.

For Diego Soler, textile businessman, Petro’s government was “anti-business.”

“We went from paying a 15% tariff in the case of textiles to paying 40%,” the owner of American Tactical, dedicated to the import and marketing of tactical equipment, tells AFP.

In the fourth largest economy in Latin America, His company survived the 23% minimum wage increase last year without layoffs, but it failed to grow.

In the presidential runoff on June 21, leftist senator Iván Cepeda and far-right lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella will face each other.

“It scares me how people support a person who, If we move forward in four years, he wants to go back again,” says Laura Valverde, a 34-year-old accountant who benefited from the minimum wage, reduced working hours and a monthly allowance for her disabled son. In the event of possible cuts, he assures that he would go out to protest.

While the attention of many voters is focused on the wave of violence that Colombia is experiencing, economists warn that The next president’s biggest challenge will be economic.

People “are going to feel the (fiscal) deterioration,” says Ana Fernanda Maiguashica, economist and president of the Private Competitiveness Council, a business sector think tank.

Convinced that social spending must be at the center of economic policy, Cepeda proposes deepening the programs promoted by Petro in one of the most unequal countries in the world.

“Changes in social policy” have led to “almost the elimination of extreme poverty” in Colombia, says economist Jorge Restrepo, professor at the Javeriana University. However, Petro leaves a fiscal deficit close to 7% of GDP and a tight public treasury.

Admirer of Argentine President Javier Milei, De la Espriella promises reduce the size of the State by 40% and apply fiscal austerity.

Experts wonder how he is going to do it, since it would imply majority support from Congress that he does not have. “It’s like a Milei without a chainsaw”Restrepo adds about De la Espriella, who received the support of US President Donald Trump.

The future president of Colombia will have to cover fiscal deficits with lower income from hydrocarbonsa traditional source of the treasury but in decline since the Petro government decided to leave fossil fuels behind.

De la Espriella, on the other hand, aims to reactivate the sector. “We have to do fracking at whatever cost (…) With that we close the fiscal gap,” he said in an interview.

The 47-year-old lawyer wants to lower taxesaccording to him, to boost GDP growth to more than double the 2.6% recorded in 2025. For its part, the ruling left taxed the richest.

After the first electoral round on May 31, The markets responded with optimism to De la Espriella’s victory by a narrow margin over Cepeda: the local currency appreciated and national bonds rose.

Of Colombian and American nationality, De la Espriella assures that “the ideal for the Colombian economy would be to dollarize it.”

In the country with the world’s largest cocaine production, drug trafficking represents more than 4% of GDP, according to a study by the University of Los Andes.

De la Espriella, who has defended those accused of drug trafficking, proposes that drug traffickers keep 10% of their money if they deliver 90% to the Statein exchange for judicial benefits such as not extraditing them.

Cepeda, on the other hand, promotes negotiating its disarmament and use its funds for the reparation of victims of the conflict.

The next president must “manage wealth, not poverty”says Germán Zuluaga, 60 years old and owner of a store.

But Angélica Gómez is worried. This 34-year-old engineer bought a home in a popular neighborhood of Bogotá thanks to a government subsidy. “Of course” having “a safe roof over my head” changed my life, he says.