Iván Duque

He is the son of Juliana Márquez Tono (born 1950), a political scientist and Iván Duque Escobar (1937–2016), a powerful local political leader who was Governor of Antioquia, auditor in the United Nations, Minister of Mines and Energy, and head of the National Registry of Civil Status in the Government of Andrés Pastrana.

Duque's siblings are Andrés and María Paula Duque.

Duque attended Colegio Rochester but obtained his high-school diploma from Colegio Winston-Salem in Bogota.

Iván Duque Márquez (born 1 August 1976) is a Colombian politician and lawyer who served as the president of Colombia from 2018 to 2022.

He began his professional career in 1999 as a consultant in CAF – Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean and later served as an advisor at the Colombian Ministry of Finance and Public Credit during the government of Andrés Pastrana (1998–2002).

He then graduated from Sergio Arboleda University in Bogotá in 2000 with a degree in law.

He holds a LLM in International economic law from American University and a Masters in Public Policy Management from Georgetown University, Washington D.C..

Subsequently, he was appointed by Juan Manuel Santos, future president and then-Minister of Finance, as one of Colombia's representatives at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), a post he held between 2001 and 2013.

There he served as chief of the Division of Culture, Solidarity, and Creativity.

Duque also served as international advisor of former President Álvaro Uribe Vélez.

Between 2010 and 2011, he was a consultant at the United Nations (UN) in the Panel of Inquiry appointed by the Secretary-General for the Incident of the Gaza Flotilla that occurred on 31 May 2010, between Israel and Turkey, known as Mavi Marmara.

Duque returned to Colombia to become a candidate for the Senate in the legislative elections of 2014, for the Partido Centro Democrático (Democratic Center Party) which split away from the ruling governing party after Juan Manuel Santos opened peace negotiations with the FARC.

This new party campaigned against the new peace agreement and the Santos Government, and was led by right wing former president Uribe.

Uribe created his own political party and presented himself and a list of hand picked political allies as candidates for the office of Congressman in a closed list, which meant that people could not vote for an individual congressman but had to vote for the party as a whole in both the upper and lower chamber elections.

Duque was included in the number seven spot of the closed off list for the Senate and thus was elected senator.

During his time as a senator, he was the author of four laws:

Opposed to the peace agreement signed in 2016 with the FARC guerrilla group, Duque, nevertheless stated at the time of his election that he had no intention of "smashing it to bits".

As president, he tried to eliminate certain points of the agreement.

His government sought to weaken the Special Jurisdiction for Peace and cut the budget of the Truth Commission and the Unit for the Search for Disappeared Persons by 30%.

The government also promoted generals involved in extrajudicial executions (see : "False positives" scandal), appoints controversial figures to key positions and halts negotiations with the other guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army (ELN).

On 10 December 2017, Duque was nominated by his party as its candidate for President of Colombia.

He won the nomination through a system of surveys conducted by the party, with a 29.47% favorability compared to the other two candidates: Carlos Holmes Trujillo who obtained 20.15%, and Rafael Nieto with 20.06%.

He was elected as the candidate from the Democratic Centre Party in the 2018 Colombian presidential election.

Backed by his mentor, former president and powerful senator Álvaro Uribe, he was elected despite having been relatively unknown a year before the election.

He ran on a platform that included opposing Juan Manuel Santos' peace agreement with the FARC guerrilla group.

After Duque's term came to an end, he was succeeded by Gustavo Petro on 7 August 2022, after Petro won the runoff round in the 2022 Colombian presidential election.

Duque was born in Bogotá to a wealthy political family originally from the Colombian town of Gómez Plata, Antioquia.

In January 2018, it was announced that the center-right coalition would participate in the Grand Primary for Colombia – an interparty consultation – with Duque as its candidate confronting Marta Lucía Ramírez (civil-center right movement) and Alejandro Ordóñez (right wing civil movement).

On 11 March 2018, Duque won the primary with more than 4 million votes.

Ramírez was second, with just over 1.5 million votes, and Ordóñez came third with 385,000 votes.

During his speech, Duque thanked the support of Colombians at the polls and announced Marta Lucía Ramírez as his running mate in the elections.

On 27 May 2018, Duque earned the most votes in the first round of the presidential election with over 39% of the vote.

Duque was elected President of Colombia on 17 June 2018 after defeating Gustavo Petro 54% to 42% in the second round.

Duque was sworn in on 7 August 2018 at Bogotá's Bolívar Square.

Duque's government main priorities are legality and entrepreunership, among other areas.

Through its National Development Plan 2018–2022, the Colombian government planned to revive the country's gold and copper markets.

In addition, 161 new oil drilling sites were planned for 2022, four times more than the 46 existing in 2018.

Hydraulic fracturing was legalised in 2019.

In 2020, after the drug lord "Ñeñe" Hernandez was murdered in Brazil, some audios of him conspiring to give money to Duque's party in order to buy votes for his election were published in what is known as the "Ñeñepolítica".

Duque's term concluded on 7 August 2022 and he was succeeded by Gustavo Petro.