This is Jacobin Radio. I'm Suzy Weissman. On today's show, Forest Hilton Professor

Politics at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Medellín, joins us from Salvador Bahía

where he is a visiting professor to bring us a comprehensive look at the historic June

19th presidential election in Colombia, historic because for the first time a progressive

government was elected with Gustavo Petro, the former mayor of Bogota and his vice president,

the Afro-Columbian Environmental Activist and Human Rights lawyer Francia Marquez, on a platform

promising a green transition tackling climate change while creating new jobs with labor

rights and more. Their election spells the end of the far right militarist politics that

is dominated Colombia and promises new relationships in the region and the hemisphere, including

the United States. We'll get Forest Hilton's assessment of Petro's victory, the challenges

ahead and what we can look forward to when our program returns in just a moment.

This is Jacobin Radio. I'm Suzy Weissman and today we are very fortunate to have Forest Hilton

with us, a Latin Americanist. He's going to fill us in on a bright spot in the world, which

is a bit of relief for those of us reeling from the defeats inflicted by the anti-democratic

Supreme Court in the United States. We'll do more on that later on another time, but today

we're going to look at a bright spot and that bright spot is Colombia where the June 19th

second round of the presidential election ended with a victory for the first leftist candidate

ever in Colombia's history. Former Bogota Mayor Gustavo Petro and his environmental activist and

human rights lawyer vice president Francia Marquez won on a promise to make Colombia a leader

in the global fight against climate change despite a heavy challenge from the right.

As Forest explains in his London Review of Books article called Fiesta Democratic, this election

is not just a new beginning for Colombia and Latin America, it spells a big defeat for Uri Rizmol,

...