Petro, a hundred days of the left’s honeymoon with power in Colombia

The Colombian President, Gustavo Petrocelebrates one hundred days in office this Tuesday, a period in which he achieved the necessary governability to carry out crucial issues such as tax reform, reestablish relations with Venezuela and advance his project of “full peace”but has not yet been able to make his government work as a team.

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Petro, elected with 50.44% of the votes, has lived his honeymoon with power practically without opposition since he managed to attract to his legislative agenda almost all the parties that did not support him in the elections, including the traditional Liberal and Conservative, and thus form a solid majority in Congress.

The task, which did not seem easy for the first left-wing president of Colombia, has resulted in a multicolored coalition formed under the umbrella of the change promised by Petro and whose first great triumph was the legislative approval of the controversial tax reform project to collect 20 billion pesos (about 4,000 million dollars) to “equality and social justice”.

THE HITS

For the political analyst Sandra Borda, professor and researcher at the Universidad de los Andes, in the first hundred days of Petro in the Presidency “There are two hits”: tax reform and the reconstruction of relations with Venezuela.

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“I think the most important of all is having managed to get the tax reform out of Congress so quickly. I think that this was part of the objectives that had been set in the Government and it is key to having sufficient resources to begin to implement the social reforms that they are thinking about ”, Borda told EFE.

As for the reestablishment of relations with Venezuela, broken since February 2019, it was expected after more than three years of an unsuccessful verbal clash between the governments of Nicolás Maduro and Petro’s predecessor, Iván Duque.

This step, together with the reopening to vehicles of the common border, closed since August 2015 by order of Maduro, was taken in September, and although many issues remain to be resolved between the two countries, it gives a turn to Colombian foreign policy that it can play a key role in the search for a way out of the Venezuelan crisis.

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“In relations with Venezuela, he was right in having quickly started the reconstruction of national ties; having made the visit (from Petro to Caracas) and above all having put on the table what are the principles that lead Colombia to start this negotiation process with the Venezuelan regime, insisting a lot on the importance of democracy and the rule of law ”, Borda expressed.

THE “TOTAL PEACE”

Petro is clear that, beyond ideological affinities, Colombia needs a normal relationship with Venezuela for its project of “full peace” which has as its starting point the resumption of negotiations with the guerrilla of the National Liberation Army (ELN) for which the support of the Caribbean country can be as decisive as it was in the dialogues with the FARC.

The Colombian president asked Maduro to be “guarantor” of these dialogues, and for that a fluid relationship is needed, since success with the ELN will depend on whether it can extend the “full peace” to other illegal armed groups such as the FARC dissidents and criminal gangs.

ENVIRONMENT VS. PETROLEUM

Also in the international arena, Petro has sought in its first hundred days a Latin American leadership in environmental matters to face the global climate crisis, which in his opinion forces the country to “to mitigate, that is, to stop emitting CO2, for which it is necessary to separate in a short time from oil and coal”.

The possibility that Colombia puts an expiration date on the exploration and exploitation of crude oil, which is the largest generator of foreign currency for the country, causes controversy due to the negative impact that a measure of this caliber would have on external accounts.

In this context, and with the economic difficulties that are looming on the horizon, the Minister of Finance, José Antonio Ocampo, has had to go out to calm the financial markets frightened by statements by other members of the cabinet, such as his colleague from Minas, Irene Vélez, and Petro himself, about the possible end of fossil fuels in the country.

Something similar occurs with the Minister of Health, Carolina Corcho, and her plan to reform the health system that, although it has flaws, is far from being “one of the worst in the world” as Petro recently cataloged it, which caused a rain of criticism from different sectors.

“The way in which they are spending political capital so quickly, exposing to the public eye the discussions that they have within the Government is going to wear them down tremendously; It is a government that has many and very great ideas but that has almost a contempt or a lack of concern for the way in which those great ideas become public policy”Borda says.

According to a survey by the firm Invamer for various media, 49.7% of Colombians approve of Petro’s management in its first hundred days and 42.7% disapprove of it, a result that reflects the division that persists in the country over the First Left Government.

Source: Elcomercio

Ronald Payne

I, Ronald Payne, am a journalist and author who dedicated his life to telling the stories that need to be said. I have over 7 years of experience as a reporter and editor, covering everything from politics to business to crime.