The hour of the nobody and the counterweights

Francia Márquez, first Afro vice president in Colombia.Fernando Vergara (AP)

A man who was a guerrilla and then bet on legal politics and a black woman of humble origins become the president and vice president of Colombia.

That photograph is a huge turn in the politics of this country where classism, racism, aporophobia and war have lived.

Gustavo Petro and Francia Márquez make history and with their arrival in power mark a turning point in a democracy that has managed to sustain itself despite multiple difficulties and inequities.

The confidence that citizens give Gustavo Petro today at the polls can be read as a key to reconciliation, although the hatred it generates in some sectors shows the way that remains to heal the wounds of the conflict.

He will be in any case the first president of the left in the history of the country.

Francia Márquez embodies the discriminated and excluded.

Woman, black, of humble origins, born in Cauca... her story is the vindication of "the nobody" as she says.

Of those who have been marginalized from power.

Her eyes will also be on her: the first Afro woman to reach the vice presidency with a feminist agenda and with the spokesperson for the immense Afro-Colombian population and for all the excluded.

Colombian democracy, which passed a test by achieving a calm and clear election, will also face a challenge in the next four years because the country remains fractured.

The role of the institutions that exercise counterweights against the Executive will be essential to guarantee that the reforms of the new Government remain within the framework of the Constitution and to avoid the temptations of a president who has shown signs of having a strongman personality.

The challenges are great.

For these first days it is about controlling fear, because the impact of the new government will begin to be felt from now on.

The biggest concern of many analysts lies in the response that the markets give to this election.

That is why the reassurance that the president-elect can give is important so that the economy is not destabilized before he makes the first decision and is affected by suspicion.

The calls for national unity in the last days of the campaign and made by the president-elect in his first statement may point in that direction.

He will have to build a team and seek alliances because he does not have a majority in Congress despite having a solid caucus.

Some swinging congressmen can give him the majorities to pass fundamental projects,

The more than 10 and a half million votes that Rodolfo Hernández obtained represent a country that said no to Petro and what differentiates a statesman from a politician is understanding when the campaign ends and when the president begins to represent the entire nation.

In his first statements, the president-elect called on those voters and welcomed them to his project.

He invoked the flags of peace, love and forgiveness.

We'll see if the call is real and if it manages to bring down prevention and hatred.

Undoubtedly, the most difficult thing for the new government to deal with is what Alejandro Gaviria called the volcano: social nonconformity, inequity, structural exclusion that has been complicated by the impact of the pandemic, rising inflation and hunger. that many people suffer from.

Gustavo Petro came to power because a majority of those excluded believed that his project could make changes.

Will the president-elect be able to respond quickly to that cry?

With the two candidates who made it to the second round, it was clear that much of the country wants something different.

However, solving problems that have been unsolved for decades or centuries is not a task for a few months and the question is what will happen on the streets if solutions do not arrive soon.

Citizens will be a counterweight against the future government.

And so will the Constitutional Court, which must be vigilant to maintain the balance of powers and put a stop to runaway ideas, even if they arrive with the intention of curbing poverty or hunger.

If the changes are made through institutional paths, they are safer.

To the Court are added the control organisms that during the campaign played controversial roles because they failed to demonstrate their impartiality, and now they must monitor the new Government.

Let us trust that they will do it within the framework of the law because those doubts that they generated lead us to think that they will now remain on the edge of the opposition.

That is good for oversight, but it is bad if they exceed and do not respect the mandate of the polls.

The traditional politicians who are big losers in this race will undoubtedly be there because political animals always know how to accommodate themselves to power.

Many of them have come since the campaign began and more will come.

The president's task will be that of a tightrope walker who must add support to have governability without giving up the social banners and change that gave him victory.

His constituents and his political group will also have to be vigilant.

"This is not the time for hatred" said Gustavo Petro in his victory speech.

For the good of the country, it is to be hoped that this is the case and that the new government can build bridges to bring the conflicting sectors closer together, that it surrounds itself well, that it fulfills the promise of responding to the most vulnerable, that it finds the way to close wounds and that do not frustrate the hope of millions who gave you the vote of confidence.

Meanwhile we have to wait for the counterweights to work.

The Cortes, the Congress, the Banco de la República, the citizens, the press, which has been affected by this dispute, also have the floor as of August 7.

Those vigilant eyes are needed and it is not superfluous to ask for a waiting period for the new Government.

In fact we will know.

Subscribe here to the EL PAÍS newsletter on Colombia and receive all the key information on the country's current affairs.