The President of Chile, Gabriel Boric, and the President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, during a press conference in Bogotá, on August 8, 2022.Fernando Vergara (AP)
The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, has been included in the list of the 100 most influential people in the world that is compiled each year by the American magazine
Time
.
His Chilean counterpart, Gabriel Boric, has written the review with which the publication describes the leadership of the Colombian president: "With the pragmatism necessary to exercise power, [Petro] has built solid alliances that allow him to dialogue with most of the forces democracies of your country.
For Boric, the Colombian leader "makes difficult decisions and learns quickly."
I have been chosen as one of the most influential leaders in humanity by Times magazine.https://t.co/Of5ieZE9Np
— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) April 13, 2023
The members of the editorial staff of the magazine have been making the list since 1999, without pre-established parameters.
They include leaders from various sectors: from artists and athletes to businessmen and politicians.
This year, some of those selected are the American actor Michael B. Jordan, the British writer Salman Rushdie, the Argentine soccer player Lionel Messi and the Chinese businessman Robin Zeng.
Among the politicians are Boric himself and the president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Also German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Myanmar Prime Minister Min Aung Hlaing.
The Chilean president has highlighted several of Petro's flagship projects.
In particular, he has referred to total peace, the ambition of the Colombian president to reach agreements to dismantle the armed groups and pacify the country.
"He is deepening Colombia's peace plan, using all the knowledge he has acquired in recent years, in a territory that has been besieged by violence for too long," he stressed.
Likewise, he has praised his ability to "be encouraged to speak" about complex issues in international forums: the failure of US drug policy, the inequitable distribution of wealth and the climate crisis.
Petro and Boric have shown their affinity from the beginning, as part of the new Latin American left.
Both came to power in 2022 and moved away from the old Bolivarian bloc.
They sought, with a certain pragmatism, to consolidate a progressive axis that shows a commitment to democracy, feminism and the environment.
The Chilean president has emphasized in his presentation that the two share the goal of "rebuilding Latin American unity beyond rhetoric."
Both leaders, however, have several differences that have also become evident in recent months.
The young Chilean president, a former student leader, has not quite taken off, with significant defeats in the process to create a new constitution and in the sanction of a tax reform.
The Colombian president, on the other hand, has managed to approve several of his main reforms —such as the tax reform and total peace— and has maintained relatively high levels of popularity.
"He has stopped dressing like the social fighter he always was to look more like a statesman," highlighted a profile in this newspaper in June, after his election as president.
Time
's recognition
of Petro is in addition to the one that Vice President Francia Márquez received last year.
The magazine included her in the Time 100 Next
list in September
, a selection of 100 emerging leaders around the world.
At that time, former Costa Rican President Carlos Alvarado Quesada praised Márquez for her "fight for equality" and described her as a reference for the country's Afro-descendant, indigenous and rural population.
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