Winds of change in Colombian politics

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This article was published 27/06/2022 (1242 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

On the face of it, Latin America is taking a noticeable turn to the left – at least politically speaking. It has happened in a host of countries lately, including Chile, Bolivia, Peru and Honduras, to name a few.

Perhaps the most surprising of all is the perennial right-leaning South American country of Colombia. True, there have been “liberal” governments in Colombia going to back to the early 1940s, some of those centrist and others more progressive, but certainly nor radical in orientation.

Some commentators, then, are now suggesting Gustavo Petro’s new government will be the first truly leftist administration in the country’s history. We’ll see about that.

The left-leaning senator Petro, from the Historic Pact coalition, will assume the Colombian presidency in August. He managed to best Rodolfo Hernández, the former mayor of Bucaramanga who was dubbed “Colombia’s Donald Trump,” garnering 50.4 per cent of the electoral vote. Petro is a 62-year-old former mayor of Bogotá, an economist by training who has often been criticized for his membership during his youth in the 19th of April Movement (or M-19 guerrilla group).

The rebel movement busted onto the political scene in Colombia in the mid-1970s in response to a conservative government winning a contested national election in 1970. In subsequent years, it kidnapped guests at the embassy of the Dominican Republic, stole armaments from a military depot in Bogotá, kidnapped a prominent labour leader and took hostages in the Palace of Justice building in the capitol.

Like many countries in Latin America, Colombia suffers from growing numbers of marginalized and unemployed, a huge gap between rich and poor and unequal access to such basic services as education, health care and early childhood development.

“Decreasing hunger requires change, change to an economic system that has reached its end,” Petro told a large, largely youthful crowd in Medellín in March.

Similarly, Colombia was hit hard by the deadly pandemic, rising prices for food and medicine, and drug- or gang-related violence. People are desperate for something new and different – anyone who can bring a change of circumstances and hope.

In addition to proposing a progressive “axis” between Brazil, Chile and Colombia in the Southern Cone, Petro is floating the idea of transitioning away from fossil fuels and new oil exploration to renewable sources of energy such as solar and wind. He is also kicking around a proposal to impose a wealth tax on Colombia’s 4,000 or so ultra-rich.

His harshest critics maintain he would turn Colombia radically socialist like neighbouring governments in Venezuela and Cuba have done. They worry about the economic fallout from significantly expanding the public sector, constraining capitalist impulses and growth and discouraging much-needed foreign investment capital and business innovation.

Petro has been careful, though, to dampen down such speculation and has even put some distance between himself and revolutionary governments in Havana and Caracas. But he has publicly acknowledged his willingness to explore a rapprochement with Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro in an attempt to improve trade relations and better manage the border (instead of conceding it to drug traffickers) between the two countries.

Some commentators are even suggesting the ascendancy of Petro will spell very bad news for the 200-year-old U.S.-Colombian relationship – with the exception of in the climate emergency space. There are concerns the new president will upset the bilateral apple cart by seeking a renegotiation of the 2012 U.S.-Colombian free trade pact, downgrading military cooperation/training and weapons procurement, making changes to the extradition treaty between the two countries and ending joint efforts at combatting the illicit drug trade in Colombia.

Of course, it’s hard to know for sure what the election of leftist Petro will actually mean for the United States – let along for the rest of the Americas. There’s a good chance his political bark will be worse than his actual bite, as was the case when long-time leftist firebrand Luiz “Lula” da Silva was first elected in Brazil in 2002.

My own guess is that some socio-economic and foreign-policy adjustments (such as a more pro-Cuba stance) will take place under a Petro government. But the serious internal, regional and global challenges of the day will make it hard for him to implement any dramatic change in Colombia.

Besides, the Colombian Armed Forces, the corporate sector and a still right-leaning Colombian congress will make it exceedingly difficult for Petro to embrace a radical or revolutionary policy agenda.

So the U.S. government should take a deep breath and adopt a cautious wait-and-see approach. Indeed, the one-time M-19 guerrilla is no Hugo Chávez of Venezuela in the early 2000s.

As Petro himself opined in March, “We will propose to Latin America a new path,” and, to paraphrase, one that is built on protecting the environment, advancing economic development and transitioning away from the extraction of natural resources. Those are hardly the words of a raving Marxist.

Peter McKenna is professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown.