Teodoro Petkoff Malec is a Venezuelan politician, ex-guerrilla, journalist and economist. One of the most prominent politicians on the left in Venezuela, Petkoff began as a communist but gravitated towards liberalism in the 1990s. He has been a prominent critic of President Hugo Chávez, and was a candidate to run against him in the December 2006 presidential elections, but dropped out of the race in August to support Manuel Rosales.