Gustavo Petro: first leftist president faces tough challenge in Colombia

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 Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. Later, he would serve as a progressive mayor of Bogota, 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.