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On the 19th of July 2022, Colombia elected the leftist Gustavo Petro as its new president, following the unstable government of the previous president, Ivan Duque. Immediately after Petro took office, many investors started to abandon the country, fearing that the Colombian economy would take a similar path to that of Venezuela. As protests began and Petro’s goals for tax reform became clearer, the country of Colombia began to become even more divided than it already was. Petro received 50.42% of the votes.
Born in 1960, Gustavo Francisco Petro Urrego has taken many titles over the years: ombudsman and councilor of Zipaquirá, mayor of Bogotá, and economist. However, the most controversial of his titles would be that of a founding member of M-19, a guerrilla organisation movement, which is most famous for the theft of Simon Bolívar’s sword, and the siege of the Palace of Justice in 1985. The Colombian president was not an active participant in this siege, due to being imprisoned at the time; as far as other acts by the organisation go, it remains unclear how active of a participant he was. Petro did take part in peace negotiations with the government in the second half of the 1980s.
Petro’s governing of Bogotá provoked a disapproval rating of nearly 70%, as his de-privatisation of garbage collection led to an attempted revocation of his mandate, and then to his dismissal on December 9, 2013. On the 19th of March 2014, Petro was barred from holding public office for 15 years, following a disciplinary investigation. This de-privatisation led to three days of chaos in Bogotá, cost the city millions, and was harmful to the environment, according to CNN.
Accusations of hypocrisy have also arisen, as Juan Carlos Holguín presents in an opinion column for La Republica: “I tried to give him the benefit of doubt and understand who Petro was as a candidate, but it has been a difficult task since only contradictions appear.” Some of these alleged contradictions include:
Petro presents himself as an anti-establishment candidate, despite having spent more than 40 years in public office, possibly making him the politician with the second-most experience in the public sector in Colombia’s history, coming second only to Julio César Turbay Ayala.
Petro has questioned the constitution of 1991, despite being one of the main parties involved in writing it.
The new Colombian president has previously stated that, like Venezuela, Colombia is a country without democracy. This is in spite of his democratic election as a councilor, mayor, and - now - president.
His interest in ending “Ecopetrol”, which is fundamental to financing government members’ salaries, was essential to ensuring his own salary while he was in Congress for almost 20 years.
Lastly, Petro is a strong critic of private college institutions, while coming from a private college himself.
However, it is important to consider the state of the country when it elected Petro, who was faced with the consequences of his predecessor’s leadership. Conditions included a financial and social crisis resulting from a poorly-managed pandemic, a collapsed health system due to state neglect, and corruption at a governmental level.
Some believed that attempting to captain this seemingly-sinking ship would be a fool’s errand, especially given that many of the current societal issues existed prior to Petro’s election. Two months is also insufficient time to achieve stability across a whole nation; it is therefore important to look at the things Petro has managed to accomplish in this short period:
Establishing open communication channels with the regions historically abandoned by the state, as well as visiting them in person and proposing solutions to their local problems.
The foundation of the Human Security Integral Councils that will prevent another direct violation of human rights as seen during the 2020-21 protests.
A visit to Providencia to assess the damages caused by Hurricane Iota.
Meanwhile, Petro’s predecessor - Iván Duque - has a very different list of accomplishments collected within his first few months of office:
Iván Duque was accused of failing to take action against the murder of activists.
He demanded certain conditions be met in order to move forward with the peace talks between the government and the ELN, a local guerrilla group, and subsequently refused to proceed with the negotiations, despite multiple requests by the United Nations.
Duque launched a formal challenge to key aspects of the 3-year-old peace treaty agreed with FARC, another local guerrilla group. The agreement had ended five decades of violence.
Insufficient time has passed to accurately state whether Petro’s government will represent a tremendous change or a harbinger of doom, but this speculation is likely to heighten divisions, rather than enable reconciliation. Only time will tell whether Petro truly has his people’s interests at heart, and if his proposed projects are viable. For now, however, his first couple of months appear to have been more successful than those of his predecessor.