New Colombian legislature

On 11 March, legislative elections for the 171-seat House of Representatives and 107-seat Senate, as well as primaries for the May presidential election, were held.

• Both houses of the legislature have taken a shift to the right.
• There will be a clear majority from the right and centre that favour Colombia's macroeconomic stability and openness to foreign direct investment, including possible corporate tax cuts.
• Support for the FARC peace process is finely balanced with single-digit majorities supporting its implementation; a full reversal is unlikely given constitutional constraints.
• Left-of-Centre presidential candidate Gustavo Petro will struggle to form a ruling coalition (if he wins the May presidential election) without compromising on his state-interventionist economic policies.

Legislative election results

No single party reached a majority in either the House of Representatives or the Senate. President Juan Manuel Santos's ruling National Unity (Unidad Nacional) coalition, comprised of the Party of the U (Partido de la U), the Liberal Party (Partido Liberal), and Citizens Option (Opción Ciudadana), lost their majority in both houses. In the House of Representatives, the Liberal Party will be the largest, with 35 seats, followed by the right-of-centre Democratic Centre (Centro Democrático: CD) with 32 seats and Radical Change (Cambio Radical: CR) with 30 seats. In the Senate, CD will be the largest party with 19 seats, followed by CR with 16 seats and the Conservative Party (Partido Conservador) with 15 seats.

Coalition building

An 86-seat majority in the House of Representatives and a 54-seat majority in the Senate will be needed to pass ordinary legislation. To reach this, a coalition of multiple parties will be needed. At present, right-of-centre parties are best positioned to achieve this. A coalition between CD and the Conservative Party (which have presented a joint precedential candidate, Iván Duque) and CR would leave the block just short of a majority, with 83 seats in the House and 50 seats in the Senate. A liberal coalition, comprising of the Liberal Party, The Party of the U, and Opción Ciudadana would only reach 62 seats in the House and 28 seats in Senate and would have to rely on parties on the right or left of the political spectrum to pass legislation. A left-of-centre coalition, comprising of Alternative Democratic Pole (Polo Democrático Alternativo: Polo) and Green Alliance (Partido Alianza Verde) would fall short well short of a majority. Even with the support of the Common Alternative Revolutionary Force (Fuerza Alternativa Revolucionaria del Común: FARC) such an alliance would yield only 16 seats in the House and 15 in the Senate.

New legislature likely to be supportive of Colombia's macroeconomic stability and openness to FDI

Between liberal and right-of-centre parties, there will be a clear majority in both houses of the legislature for Colombia's well-known pro-market economic policies and the country's friendly environment for foreign direct investment (FDI). CD and CR both support corporate tax cuts to incentivise private investment. Their position is broadly supported by the Liberal Party and is likely to be supported by the Conservatives. These parties are likely to continue supporting the development of Colombia's extractive sectors, although there is some difference among the parties on the extent to which social and environmental considerations should limit the development of projects. Germán Vargas Lleras, leader of CR, has advocated reducing community rights to oppose centrally approved projects by limiting the right to prior consultation. Duque, presidential candidate for CD and the Conservatives, has called for greater environmental protection around extractive projects. Were left-of-centre presidential candidate Gustavo Petro to win, he would struggle to obtain legislative support for policies that dissuaded investment, including a re-orientation of the economy away from extractives towards manufacturing and agriculture, the implementation of a carbon tax, and the elimination of tax breaks.

Support for the FARC peace process

The balance of power between parties that support and oppose the peace agreement reached between the government and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) and its implementation will be finely balanced in the next legislature. The three parties that have been critical of the process or its implementation, CD, CR, and the Conservatives are likely to push for legislation that reverses parts of the peace agreement. However, they are just short of majorities in both houses, with liberal of left-of-centre parties expected to block such legislation. Regardless, their actions would be limited by a 2017 Constitutional Court ruling that binds the next three administrations to the terms of the peace agreement. Nevertheless, the anti-peace agreement bloc is likely to be more organised than the political factions that support the agreement and are unlikely to support pro-peace agreement initiatives that go beyond the strict interpretation of the peace agreement. They are also likely to be far more hesitant to continue peace negotiations with the Ejército de Liberación Nacional initiated by the Santos administration in 2017.

Outlook and implications

The first round of the presidential election will be held on 27 May. According to a poll published on 1 March, Petro and Duque are leading the presidential race with 22% of the vote apiece, followed by Fajardo on 11% and Vargas Lleras on 8%. If Duque wins, he is likely to find legislative support for maintaining Colombia's openness to FDI, including the provision of incentives including tax cuts. However, his ability to reverse the FARC peace agreement will be more limited, due to a lack of a legislative majority for such initiatives and constitutional constraints. If Petro wins, he will struggle to create a coalition that supports his favoured policies of growing participation of the state in the economy and his well-known stance against the extractive industries. He would invariably have to rely on liberal parties to pass legislation, which is likely to encourage more centrist policymaking. Beyond the first-round presidential election results, an indicator of future policy stability will include the announcement of a political pact between the CR, CD, and Conservative parties. The announcement of a compromise on economic policy by Petro or support for the peace process by Duque would make it more likely that either could create a viable majority coalition.