In a momentous development for Colombia’s ongoing journey toward peace and accountability, the country’s Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) tribunal has handed down its first sentences for war crimes committed during the nation’s decades-long internal conflict. On September 16, 2025, the tribunal found seven former leaders of the now-defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guilty of policies that led to the kidnapping of nearly 22,000 people—a staggering number that underscores the scale of suffering endured by thousands of Colombian families. The verdict, delivered in Bogota, marks a historic milestone in Colombia’s transitional justice process, as reported by the Associated Press and Al Jazeera.
Rather than traditional prison sentences, the JEP’s ruling imposes eight years of reparations work on the convicted former commanders, including Julian Gallo and Pablo Catatumbo, both of whom currently serve as lawmakers in Colombia’s Congress. According to Judge Alejandro Ramelli, the sentence represents the maximum punishment permitted under the restorative justice framework established by the 2016 Havana peace accord. The focus is not on incarceration, but on repairing the harm caused by decades of armed conflict. The sanctions include searching for the disappeared, demining operations, symbolic acts of reparation, and efforts toward environmental recovery—measures meant to foster reconciliation and healing in communities ravaged by violence.
These are the first individual punishments issued by the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, a court specifically created as part of the 2016 peace deal between the Colombian government and the FARC. As Al Jazeera notes, this tribunal was designed to address grave human rights abuses and war crimes committed during Colombia’s internal conflict, with an emphasis on truth, reparation, and non-repetition. The hope was that by trading traditional retribution for restorative justice, Colombia could break the cycle of violence and lay the groundwork for lasting peace.
Yet, while the JEP’s sentence is being hailed as a significant step forward for transitional justice, it has also thrown the future of the FARC’s political successor, the Comunes party, into sharp relief. Born out of the peace process, Comunes was granted automatic seats in Congress—five in the Senate and five in the House—under the terms of the Havana accord. This guarantee was intended to ensure that former guerrillas could participate in democratic politics, a right they had long been denied, often through violent means.
But that lifeline is about to end. In March 2026, the Comunes party will lose its automatic congressional seats, and with it, the certainty of its continued presence in Colombia’s political landscape. According to ColombiaOne, political analysts are already questioning whether Comunes can survive as a legally constituted party, given its weak electoral performance in recent years. In 2018, the party received just 52,532 votes for the Senate (0.34% of the total) and 32,636 for the House (0.21%). By 2022, those numbers had dropped even further: 31,116 votes for the Senate and 21,182 for the House—a 38.5% decline compared to its first election.
Colombian electoral law is unforgiving in this regard. To maintain legal party status, a political organization must secure at least 3% of the vote in a national election. Comunes, by all accounts, is far from reaching that threshold. The party’s support base, concentrated mostly in Bogota, has proven insufficient to clear the legal hurdle, let alone to sustain a viable national presence. If it fails to reach the 3% mark in the March 2026 legislative elections, Comunes faces the prospect of extinction as a political party.
Why has Comunes struggled so mightily at the ballot box? Some observers argue that the guaranteed seats themselves may have discouraged voters from backing the party, knowing that its representation in Congress was already assured. Others point to the rise of the Historic Pact, a broad leftist coalition led by current President Gustavo Petro, which attracted much of the progressive vote in the 2022 elections. Indeed, Comunes’ decision not to fold into the Historic Pact, but instead to remain a separate entity, may have contributed to its marginalization on the national stage.
In an effort to stave off political oblivion, Comunes has joined forces with other small leftist organizations in the Unitarios coalition. This alliance includes groups such as Todos Somos Colombia, Movimiento Liberales de Base, Movimiento de Integración Democratica, Poder Popular, Partido del Trabajo de Colombia, and Democracia desde Abajo. The hope is that, together, they can surpass the 3% threshold required for legal recognition in the upcoming elections. However, as ColombiaOne notes, the coalition’s collective strength remains uncertain, and many doubt it will be enough to secure Comunes’ survival.
The party’s challenges are not limited to legislative representation. Comunes has also failed to produce a viable presidential candidate. In 2022, Rodrigo Londoño—formerly known as “Timochenko,” the FARC’s last commander-in-chief and current party president—announced a run for the presidency, only to withdraw soon after for health reasons. The party subsequently threw its support behind Gustavo Petro, who went on to become Colombia’s first left-wing president. For the 2026 presidential race, Comunes has not fielded a candidate at all, though this is not unprecedented in Colombian politics; both the Conservative and Liberal parties have lacked strong presidential contenders since 2002, yet maintain significant congressional presence thanks to their deep-rooted political machinery.
Still, the comparison only goes so far. Unlike the traditional parties, Comunes lacks the territorial reach, organizational infrastructure, and resources that have allowed its rivals to endure. Its existence as a political force has always been precarious, dependent on the protections and guarantees afforded by the peace process. Now, with those guarantees set to expire, the party faces a stark choice: adapt, merge, or risk fading into irrelevance.
The stakes are high—not just for Comunes, but for Colombia’s broader experiment in transitional justice and democratic inclusion. The peace accord’s architects envisioned a society in which former combatants could lay down their arms and participate in politics without fear of violence or exclusion. The JEP’s sentencing of the FARC’s last leadership, with its emphasis on reparations and healing, is a testament to that vision. But the uncertain fate of Comunes serves as a reminder that peace is not just about the absence of war; it is about building institutions and practices that can withstand the pressures of political competition and societal change.
As the March 2026 elections approach, all eyes will be on Comunes and its allies in the Unitarios coalition. Will they manage to clear the electoral threshold and secure a future for the party born out of Colombia’s most ambitious peace effort? Or will the end of automatic seats mark the final chapter for a political project that, for all its flaws, represented a historic attempt to turn swords into plowshares? The answer, as ever in Colombian politics, remains uncertain—but the coming months will prove decisive.
