Bogota, Colombia: Laura Espinel would not have been able to fulfill her dream of becoming an artist without the “zero tuition” programme launched in 2023 by Gustavo Petro’s administration.

The programme covers up to 100 percent of tuition costs at the country’s public universities and is primarily aimed at young people from middle- and lower-income families. Since its launch, according to official data, it has benefitted 870,000 students at 64 public institutions.

“Without zero tuition, I might not have been able to study, because when I started school, my financial situation was quite precarious; I didn’t have the resources to pay for a semester, not even at a public university,” said Espinel. Without the tuition waiver, Laura could pay around $400 per year, and at a private university, it would be at least $3,000.

The “zero tuition” programme is one of the numerous social policies promoted by Colombia’s first left-wing government, that of Gustavo Petro, which is coming to an end after four years.

On May 31, Colombia will elect a new president. The main candidates are two political opposites. Ivan Cepeda, a veteran left-wing congressman and member of the same party as Petro, wants to continue most of his policies, both social and economic.

He supports continuing the transition to renewable energy and injecting capital into the Colombian countryside and small farmers so that it becomes a pillar of the country’s economy, creating more jobs, increasing food production, and contributing to a commercial transition plan that aims to gradually shift capital towards the agricultural sector rather than extractive industries.

At the other end of the spectrum is Abelardo de la Espriella, a far-right “outsider” lawyer seeking to emulate El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, primarily in his controversial security proposals, including building mega-prisons. His main economic platform focuses on reducing government spending as much as possible and lowering taxes for large corporations.

Both face a huge challenge: a net debt equivalent to 58.5 percent of GDP which comes with high-interest payments and limits the government’s spending ability.

Social progress

Petro spent much of his time in office trying to get Congress to approve many of his ambitious proposals: peace talks with illegal armed groups; pension reform to expand coverage and strengthen public pension funds; and a financing law that sought to make the rich pay more taxes by imposing a wealth tax.

As neither the tax reform nor the changes to the personal wealth tax were enacted, the government implemented portions of the tax reform, including a temporary wealth tax, both for individuals and businesses.

But his most significant achievement came from the labour reform approved in last June, which raised the minimum wage by 23 percent, much higher than the usual increases which ranged from 5 percent to 10 percent. The same law stipulates that overtime be better paid and starts at 7pm, two hours earlier than previously. In Colombia, the legal workday is eight hours.

Javier Beltran is a small-scale baker who owns a shop in a central area of Bogota. He has only one employee and pays her all social benefits. The minimum wage increase took him by surprise.

“The numbers didn’t add up for me, but I understand it was the right thing to do,” he told Al Jazeera.

Beltran sought to cut costs so he could pay what the law requires. Other business owners in the neighbourhood reduced their number of employees.

With the approval of the labour reform, unemployment was expected to rise as many employers were unable to adapt. However, unemployment has been falling in Colombia: it reached 10.9 percent in January — the lowest rate in 25 years — and down from 11.2 percent in 2022 when Petro came into office.

But some economists say increased purchasing power among workers from wage rises stimulates the economy, especially as the pay rise outpaced inflation.

Others attribute this decline in the unemployment rate to a rise in informal jobs and the expansion of government bureaucracy, which grew from 48,000 people in 2022 to 64,000 in 2024. Similarly, six out of ten new jobs at the beginning of 2026 were informal, mainly in retail, agriculture, construction and transportation, according to data collected by a local media outlet.

Mauricio Salazar, an economist at the Fiscal Observatory at Javeriana University in Colombia, adds that this is also part of a regional trend.

“Unemployment figures across Latin America have been declining, but the country has not seen a significant drop compared to other countries in the region, and this trend is linked to the post [COVID-19] pandemic recovery,” when there was a massive surge in layoffs, Salazar said.

‘Relying on increased debt’

All of these social measures have led to increased public spending, a key challenge for the next government.

To be able to fund his proposals, Petro aimed to raise 26 trillion pesos ($2.5bn) through several measures, including a budget plan which, among other steps, would have raised taxes on the rich. But all were rejected by Congress.

Salazar says that the state of the economy left behind by Petro is cause for concern.

“This administration has increased the debt by 400 trillion pesos ($109bn). So the key question is, beyond its focus on equity, what was its strategy for growing the economy and attracting more investment? Because whatever it was, the data shows it isn’t working. The government has been relying on increased debt,” he said.

Some economists blame the heightened debt on the pandemic during which governments the world over undertook social spending to help cover the sudden, and prolonged, loss of income as businesses shut down overnight.

Some argue that Petro inherited hefty levels of debt to begin with – it stood at least at 57 percent of GDP under his predecessor, Ivan Duque.

They blame Congress for failing to pass a value added tax that would have helped government finances by taxing petroleum-based liquid fuels, online gambling and businesses associated with churches.

“Petro sought to promote an economic model in which the recovery of workers’ share of national income demonstrates that an unequal economy is less prosperous. Colombian society is calling for increased spending, but the country’s elite—particularly in the oil and mining sectors—were very effective in blocking the promise of tax justice in Congress,” said Simon Gomez, an economist at King’s College London, who has launched an economic think tank to support Petro’s economic policies.

One of Petro’s main campaigns was to promote energy transition, replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy. He suspended the signing of new contracts for coal, oil and gas exploration and distributed land to small farmers—in some cases, land purchased from large landowners, and in others, land that had been owned by the state and confiscated during the worst periods of the internal armed conflict at the beginning of the 2000s.

But hydrocarbons represent more than 40 percent of Colombia’s total exports and are not easily replaceable. The next president will have to find new ways to generate revenue or revive these economic activities.

The right-wing candidate, de la Espriella, has already announced that, if elected, he will authorise development such as fracking to increase oil and gas reserves.

Cepeda, on the other hand, would focus on non-conventional renewable energy, such as solar and wind, and strengthening the rural economy, financing it with the increased oil revenues from Ecopetrol, the state-owned multi-energy company and one of the region’s leading oil companies.

Tit-for-tat tariffs

Since the peace agreement signed by the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in 2016, the country enjoyed several years of peace, but the conflict has gradually returned and new illegal groups have emerged, creating a climate of violence, particularly in rural areas and small cities.

In January, Ecuador cited that security concern for unilaterally imposing a 30 percent tariff on imports from its northern neighbour, Colombia. Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa said that Petro was not cooperating on security matters along the 586km shared border. The measure was eventually raised to 100 percent.

In a tit-for-tat response, Colombia responded with the same level of tariffs on imports from Ecuador.

Ecuador is the sixth-largest destination for Colombian exports, while Colombia ranks as Ecuador’s second or third-largest trading partner.

Since February, when the tariffs came into place, it is estimated that around 5,000 jobs have been lost in the border region with at least 2,700 companies affected in Colombia and another 2,000 in Ecuador.

Businesses in Colombia’s auto sector, which exports to Ecuador, have been one of the hardest hit. Ecuador’s seafood industry, one of its main exports to Colombia, has also been affected.

In early May, the Andean Community (CAN) – a subregional integration mechanism – intervened and declared those measures illegal. The organisation set a 10-day deadline, which was to expire on May 21, for the tariffs to be removed. Ecuador refused.

Guillaume Long, a former Ecuadorian foreign minister, believes the decision by Noboa was arbitrary and politically motivated, and that it has ended up severely affecting the people of both countries.

“Noboa said he made that decision because Petro was not cooperating on border security. But that is not justification for imposing tariffs. In 2015–2016, the last time Ecuador imposed tariffs, it was because Colombia had devalued its currency. According to the law, a time limit for the measure must be established. In this case, it is not properly justified, nor is there a time limit, and there is no differentiation between products—in other words, it is all arbitrary,” he said.

This diplomatic battle is exacerbating investor mistrust in Colombia, which has already been on the decline due to the rise in violence and will add to the list of challenges for the incoming president.

On Sunday, Laura, Javier, and their only employee, Johana, will vote for Cepeda. But the owners of other small shops next to their store visited by Al Jazeera will vote for any candidate who opposes Petro.