Gustavo Petro, in Bogotá, on January 29, 2022. JEP
Photo unthinkable a few weeks ago: the elected president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, and former president Álvaro Uribe, talking, without stern gestures or insults.
Gone are the mutual confrontational qualifications in the media or in the Senate, when both were part of it.
“Paraco”, said one;
“Terrorist”, answered the other.
Sign of coexistence between opposites positively received by the people and widespread aspiration for peace.
In a gesture that speaks volumes, in several newsstands or street vendors in downtown Bogotá, the photo of Petro and Uribe occupies visible and leading space.
Because that peace, incomplete and that has been so elusive in Colombian history, has, in the eyes of the people, a unique opportunity now.
Petro's government, which is inaugurated this Sunday, poses a whole range of challenges to the regime itself and to Colombian society.
They range from the hope of the people who now see Gustavo Petro positively in more than 60%, to threats such as traditional structures and powers that perceive this first “leftist” government in Colombian political history as dangerous.
Because the exclusion of the left has been systematic and prolonged.
Effect of the agreement in 1957 between liberals and conservatives (Pact of Sitges), a convulsive history to which fears are added in certain sectors, less distant in time, linking any leftist option with "guerrillas" or, more recently, with ghosts of "Castrochavism".
Things now look different, and in this Petro has been charting a different and own course.
In the campaign he was decanting his own profile, coming to speak of "democratic capitalism", in line with the non-Marxist Nobel Prize winner for Economics Joseph Stiglitz.
On the other hand, the equipment that Petro has been putting together for the government, which will be installed in just over a week, is of high quality and qualifications.
The foreign minister-designate, Álvaro Leyva Durán, a seasoned and experienced politician and intellectual, coming from the ranks of the conservative party, contributes, among other conditions, his valuable experience as articulator of the Peace Agreements celebrated in 2016 between the FARC and the government of Juan Manuel Santos.
Undoubtedly, his role will be singularly key to "untying" the distance with Venezuela and promoting a way out with the National Liberation Army (ELN), with whom the Duque government cut off communications in 2019.
Leyva Durán is joined by the prominent economist Juan Antonio Ocampo, established in high-ranking functions in the United Nations.
And the former university president and former Minister of Health, Alejandro Gaviria, in Education.
Also the lawyer Iván Velásquez, as Minister of Defense, with relevant experience in the UN (CICIG, Guatemala).
And,
last but not least
, the very well received Vice President Francia Márquez, contributing her experience as a social and feminist fighter, as well as an expression of the country's rich multiethnicity.
Within the multitude of challenges, two fundamental fronts stand out: economic and peace.
Fourth Latin American economy, Petro inherits a high fiscal deficit (6%) and a growing external debt.
What he calls for an increase in tax revenue, for which reality imposes changes that the government will have to carry out in its first months.
Both because of the urgency and because it now has a parliamentary majority with which the government will be inaugurated.
His proposal to reorient the energy matrix, not allowing
fracking
in oil exploitation and discouraging exploration in new exploitations, may seem discordant.
But, in the end, he fits in with contemporary priorities promoted in the European Union in energy matters.
With a poverty rate approaching 40% of the population and the resounding reality with which Colombia has already made itself heard in the 2019-2021 protests, an urgent challenge is not only to efficiently manage the economy.
It is also promoting an adequate redistributive and tax strategy that does not scare investment, but that does generate adequate resources to face poverty and meet postponed social debts.
As far as peace is concerned, the government's objectives connect directly with a society that aspires to the same.
The change of government clears the stage for compliance with a series of aspects of the peace agreements blocked due to the lack of political will of the outgoing government and of resources.
For example, comprehensive agrarian reform or the reincorporation of ex-combatants.
Also to be able to stop in its tracks the post-peace accords tragedy of the assassination of nearly 300 demobilized ex-combatants.
But the country continues to be a powder keg of armed conflict and insecurity.
More than 13,000 FARC combatants were demobilized, yes.
But several factors of violence are outside this framework.
From former members of the FARC who were not part of the 2016 agreements to others who, like Iván Márquez and his followers, signed them, but later withdrew.
Separately, the ELN is a crucial issue and on which several signs have already been given that the issue will be addressed as a priority.
Due to its structure, territorial implantation, decentralization and articulation with other centers of power in the same areas in which they operate, the matter raises the need for a management that could not be a carbon copy of that of Santos with the FARC.
The solidity of Leyva Durán will weigh positively, who announced that "with the ELN there is already an open road."
He is joined by people who could play key roles, such as the designated peace commissioner, Danilo Rueda, Senator Iván Cepeda, or, due to his experience and conditions, although he is not part of the Government, Senator Humberto de la Calle.
Added to this panorama is the diversity of other sources of violence and territorial control that cannot be ignored, such as the “lan del Golfo, in what Leyva Durán has called “reception” exchange of crucial information and collaboration with the justice system.
This also has to do with armed groups of various kinds operating in areas left by the FARC as well as in others where they had been operating with force and impunity.
Finally, drug trafficking, an issue that opens up tremendous challenges that require creative and effective readjustments.
Overcoming a regional situation that has lasted inertially for decades and that does not offer results, will only be reversed with global policies -or, even inter-American ones- reviewed in depth.
This requires that other actors concerned at the production end -such as Peru and Bolivia- and the main consumer countries, stop repeating sterile speeches and policies that have not worked.
In that
corsi e ricorsi
, the absence of leadership stands out today.
Challenge that, perhaps, could be assumed by Colombia.
In almost all of the above, the course and content of the articulation between the government and the Colombian army, one of the military institutions of Latin America with the greatest relative weight, is a delicate and weighty matter.
With budget resources equivalent to 3.4% of GDP, it is the second largest military budget in the region (after Brazil).
Its last boss, General Eduardo Zapatero, took a political stance against Petro during the campaign, who was later elected as president.
An efficient and respectful structuring of the constitutional order and the political decisions of the government is an important challenge to face the immense responsibilities that the Colombian State and society have in matters of peace and internal security.
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