Iván Duque

Iván Duque Márquez is a Colombian lawyer, politician, and writer, who was elected and served as Colombian President during the constitutional period between 2018 to 2022.

His public career began as an advisor at the Colombian Ministry of Finance in 2000, from where he left for Washington, DC as Colombia's senior advisor to the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), between 2001 and 2010. From there, he joined the investigative panel on the incident between Israel and Turkey about the Israeli incursion on the ship Mavi Marmara. He then returned to the IDB as head of the Culture, Creativity, and Solidarity Division from 2011 to 2013.

He was senator of the Republic of Colombia from July 20, 2014, to April 10, 2018, where he promoted laws on the extension of maternity leave, development of electric mobility, availability of defibrillators in public places, the creation and promotion of the figure of BIC companies (Benefit of Collective Interest), and promotion of creative industries (Orange Law). He resigned his seat in the Senate to devote himself to the presidential campaign that was taking place in the country, where he was ahead in all the polls, placing him as the main favorite to occupy the first administrative position of the country.

On June 17, 2018, Iván Duque was elected President of Colombia for the constitutional period 2018 - 2022, with a government program based on legality, entrepreneurship, and egality, defeating Gustavo Petro by more than two million votes at the polls.

During his presidency, Iván Duque led the effort to solve the social and economic problems derived from the COVID-19 pandemic, first by more than doubling the health sector’s attention capabilities nationwide, and then by decreeing a mandatory preventive intelligent isolation policy throughout the country in March 2020. Together with the health sector´s improvement, Duque established the largest social protection network in Colombian history. These measures were enhanced with fiscal responsibility, enabling the best economic performance of the region from an economic resilience point of view, as was related by several international organizations.