President Gustavo Petro’s proposed legislation could raise $11.5bn a year with measures including wealth tax and levy on oil exports

Colombia’s new leftist government has proposed an ambitious plan to tax the rich in an effort to combat poverty in one of the most unequal countries in the Americas.

If implemented, the Piketty-esque legislation proposed by President Gustavo Petro could raise more than $11.5bn annually to fund anti-poverty efforts, free public university and other social welfare programs.

Government pledges ‘judicial and political steps’ to enable talks to resume with nation’s last guerrillas broken off three years ago

Colombia’s new government and members of the nation’s last guerrilla group have taken steps towards restarting peace talks that were suspended three years ago in Cuba.

Newly elected President Gustavo Petro, a former member of the M-19 guerrilla group, has promised to establish “total peace” in Colombia and sent a high-level delegation to Cuba this week to meet with National Liberation Army (ELN) representatives there.

Feared Gulf Clan has unleashed terror campaign since arrest of leader in May but keen to talk to leftist president Gustavo Petro

One of Colombia’s most feared armed groups has announced a “unilateral” ceasefire in the hopes of entering peace talks with the government of Colombia’s new leftist leader, Gustavo Petro.

The Gulf Clan, a notorious drug-trafficking militia, has unleashed a campaign of terror following the May extradition to the US of its leader – Dairo Antonio Úsuga, or “Otoniel”, assassinating dozens of police and holding large swaths of the country hostage.

At his swearing in Gustavo Petro, a former guerrilla, says the country is getting a ‘second chance’ to tackle violence and poverty

Colombia’s first leftist president has been sworn into office, promising to fight inequality and bring peace to a country long haunted by bloody feuds between the government, drug traffickers and rebel groups.

Gustavo Petro, a former member of Colombia’s M-19 guerrilla group, won the presidential election in June by beating conservative parties that offered moderate changes to the market-friendly economy, but failed to connect with voters frustrated by rising poverty and violence against human rights leaders and environmental groups in rural areas.

Despite the election euphoria, Petro has a thin mandate and is viewed with suspicion by many

He spent 12 years of his youth in the ranks of an urban guerrilla group, taking the alias of a revolutionary general from Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. Later, he would serve as a progressive mayor of Bogotá, Colombia’s capital, and as a senator. He ran for president unsuccessfully twice, unable to overcome the conservative wall erected nearly two centuries ago around the Colombian presidency.

But on Sunday, Gustavo Petro, 62, was finally able to topple that wall and was elected president, making history as the first leftwing head of state of the South American country.

Rivals Gustavo Petro will face Rodolfo Hernández on 19 June amid growing discontent over inequality and inflation

Colombia’s election will go to a runoff between two opposing anti-establishment candidates on 19 June after voters on Sunday were unable to pick a president outright.

Gustavo Petro, a leftist former guerrilla and onetime mayor of Bogotá, won the largest share of the vote, with 40%, but fell short of the 50% required to win outright and prevent a second round. Petro’s rival in the runoff will be Rodolfo Hernández, a business magnate and social media firebrand, who is viewed as a conservative, populist outsider.

Presidential frontrunner is former leftist guerrilla Gustavo Petro in country ruled for decades by the right

Colombians head to the polls today in a presidential election that may give the conservative South American country its first ever leftwing leader and first black vice-president.

Frontrunner Gustavo Petro, a former M-19 guerrilla fighter and senator, faces several rivals, but his main challenger is Federico Gutiérrez, the former mayor of Medellín – Colombia’s second city – who leads a rightwing coalition with close ties to the incumbent government of President Iván Duque.