Gustavo Petro will be the next president of Colombia. The country will have a president located to the left of the center, something that has not happened since, I don't know... never?

The fact is not only historical and transcendental for the Colombian nation and its inhabitants, but also for the entire Latin American Region. However, what in most countries could be expressed with stereotyped journalistic synonyms such as “the elected president will assume power on that date”, in this case, does not apply except with asterisks and small letters. Because it is one thing to come to power and quite another to be able to exercise it.

And we won't steal more than three or four minutes to tell you the keys to, perhaps, the most transcendental event that Colombian history has given since the days of independence.

With a participation of almost 60%, very high by Colombian standards, Gustavo Petro obtained a few tenths more than half of the votes, becoming the new president of Colombia.

Electorally, the result is the biggest defeat for Uribism since it officially emerged two decades ago. Eye, electorally. The candidate closest to Alvaro Uribe did not make it past the first round, and the one who garnered the vote of the former president's supporters was defeated in the second.

Petro's victory has a lot to do with the social weariness accuмulated by the string of Uribe leaders or Uribe leaders who govern Colombia uninterruptedly since 2002.

The fear of "Castrochavism" or the supposed "Venezuelanization" of Colombia, very present in all Colombian electoral campaigns of this century (including this one), in contrast, did not have enough effect on this occasion. Discursive phenomenon that, in fact, has been losing electoral strength in the region in recent years.

It is enough to compare what the Liman Group was in 2019 and what the "Lima group" is today. And it is that Petro's victory is part of an increasingly accentuated regional political shift. Today, politically, Latin America looks more and more like the first decade of the 21st century than the second. What's more, at that time, two regional heavyweights like Colombia and Mexico never had governments far from the direct control of Washington and now they do.

Add to that the possible arrival to the Brazilian presidency of a Lula whom prison, far from turning off, emboldened, and the weakening and uncertainty of the current position of the US, at a global level.

With this regional panorama in the making, don't be surprised if the White House ends up missing the times of Chavez, Evo, Nestor, Kirchner and Correa. But if at the regional level Petro has soft and favorable winds to carry out the transformations that he promised in the campaign, internally the panorama is much less peaceful.

First, the electoral victory, as epic and historic as it is, is also very close. His starting political capital is relative and he will have to balance on the taut rope of reality so as not to unleash his opponents or disappoint his followers.

Although Colombia has a fairly presidential system, the Historical Pact with which Petro assumes the presidency does not control even a fifth of the Senate and House of representatives. With the risk that each measure will have to negotiate so much, no matter how inconsequential, that the Historical Pact ends up being more pact than historical.

Despite the fact that Gustavo Petro is basically a social democrat, the big Colombian media will present him more insistently than ever as the living reincarnation of Fidel Castro, Hugo Chávez and Manuel Marulanda “Tirofijo” in one person. Which would not matter if it weren't for the number of his compatriots who are willing to believe it, be terrified and act accordingly.

But the real challenge for the future president is, paradoxically, in the structures of the State that, as of August, will have him as head. Many of them are still penetrated by drug trafficking and paramilitarism.

And one thing, as is normal in many countries, is that the opposition does not want to let you govern. But another, very different, is that the one who did not want to let you govern is the State itself. Because this is probably the first time in Colombian history that the new president has not been part of power since before assuming it.

And those who have power in Colombia could perhaps come to accept a president who is not to their liking, but it would be difficult for them to cede an important part of that power. And, to the extent that Gustavo Petro, those who accompany him in his proposal and those who voted for it manage to overcome the challenges they face, in a few years we will know if, in addition to making history in Colombia, they managed to transform it.