Michael Shifter, senior fellow and former president of the Inter-American Dialogue: “For some time, it was clear that, consistent with a region-wide trend, this would be a ‘change election’ in Colombia. Sunday’s first-round results dramatically underscored that assessment. As expected, the vast majority of Colombians are unhappy with the country’s direction and distrustful of and fed up with the political establishment, especially with the center and right. A leftist government—represented by Gustavo Petro and his popular running mate, Francia Márquez—only became possible after the peace agreement with the FARC in 2016. Petro, who lost to Iván Duque in the second round in 2018, was always expected to perform well this time around. Although after the March primaries it seemed that the most likely match-up would be Petro and center-right candidate Federico ‘Fico’ Gutiérrez, most analysts understood that an anti-politics ‘outsider’ could emerge and overtake Fico. That’s exactly what happened with Rodolfo Hernández, who in the end was seen as a better instrument to channel the anti-Petro sentiment than Fico…”