Colombia: president-elect looks to build governing coalition

By ASTRID SUÁREZ
Associated Press

BOGOTÁ, Colombia (AP) — President-elect Gustavo Petro, who has vowed to lift up Colombia’s poor and disenfranchised, has won the support of an influential party of the establishment as he tries to build a majority coalition in Congress. Petro, a former Bogotá mayor and member of the M-19 rebel group that demobilized in the 1980s, has won the support of the Liberal Party, which backed another candidate in the first round of Colombia’s presidential election. Petro won the second round on Sunday in a blow to political traditionalists who have guided Colombia through drug and guerrilla violence, as well as economic growth and stability, over generations.