Gabriel Boric and Gustavo Petro during the inauguration of Chile’s President on March 11. rrss
Gustavo Petro’s victory in the presidential elections in Colombia upset the balance of the Andean country and has repercussions for the entire region with a realignment of the progressive axis in Latin America. The result achieved this Sunday by the candidate and his number two, Francia Márquez, strengthens the path of a new left on the geopolitical map of the subcontinent. With the characteristics of each leadership and the peculiarities of each ecosystem, Petro enters a club made up of Mexican Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Argentine Alberto Fernández and for a few months Gabriel Boric, the young president who stopped the extreme right Chile and at the same time made clear the abyss that separates it from the old Bolivarian bloc. Bolivian Luis Arce and, with many more nuances, Peruvian Pedro Castillo join this alliance. However, it is still too early to speak of a consolidation of a progressive front in Latin America. Internationalists and political scientists agree: we have to wait for the elections in Brazil.
The President-elect of Colombia has not only reached a historic milestone in his country, but also wants to contribute to the process of revitalizing Latin American integration. It’s a goal shared with some of his potential allies, with López Obrador and Alberto Fernández at the helm. This was demonstrated at the recent Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, a forum that reaffirmed the distance between the United States and the rest of the continent and even raised voices calling for the Organization of American States (OAS) to be overthrown. ). “Strategic lines are emerging in Petro’s foreign policy that still need a lot of content,” says internationalist Laura Gil, director of the portal La linea del medio. One of them is a recent arrival in Latin America without sacrificing the privileged relationship with the United States, he explains.
Another line is the emphasis on diplomacy around climate change: “How do you bring substance to the statement ‘Make Colombia a world power for life’? It’s time to sit down and break it down.” He adds that the stated purpose of resuming broken ties with Venezuela is not just due to the urgency of the situation, but is part of “a good-neighborhood policy that supports the Recognition means that no matter what happens in Venezuela, we have a 1,400-mile border with them and that we must help solve problems, not deepen them.”
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These priorities form a common thread that connects Bogotá, Buenos Aires and Mexico City. In the latter case, Humberto Beck, professor and researcher at the Center for International Studies at the Colegio de México, sees a parallel between Petro’s triumph and the 2018 rise to power of López Obrador and his Morena movement were the only large countries in Latin America that did not have a left-wing government. For us, that speaks first of all to a structural change in the electorate,” he explains. The Mexican President expressed his solidarity with the Colombian candidate for the attacks from the right after the first round. This message, which earned him reproaches from the outgoing Iván Duque government, is the umpteenth proof of a profound shift in the North American country’s diplomatic strategy. López Obrador has always defended that “the best foreign policy is domestic policy,” but months ago he changed course.
“Petro’s victory undoubtedly benefits this new Mexican political strategy, with which the President is trying to project his leadership as a counterbalance to the United States. I don’t think this rhetoric will have any practical or concrete consequences, but he wants to use a platform regionally as a lever to assert himself.” “Also, he realized that as long as Lula doesn’t win in Brazil, he’s going to be the leader of this block. And as governments join, it will gain power.” For Francisco Abundis, director of the consulting firm Parametria, the affinity between the two personalities and their political path are of particular importance. “Although López Obrador was perhaps never that radical, he was never in a guerrilla group, he has a history of social struggles,” he points out. Both built their speeches as opponents who never gave up, and the Mexican president carried some of those qualities into the presidency. There are “personality issues that may have some similarities other than finally aligning the actions and decisions of the two governments.” And that ultimately establishes a premise for a particular understanding.
However, these regional ambitions of both Petro and Alberto Fernández or López Obrador also run through Lula’s victory in Brazil, clarifies the internationalist Sandra Borda. The academic entered politics this year hand-in-hand with New Liberalism, but distanced herself from the party to announce she would vote for Petro in the second round. “If you want to set yourself up as a regional leader and steer regional integration in one direction, you have to have diplomatic strength, a very strong State Department; Itamaraty in Brazil is a monstrous thing, Colombia doesn’t have that. I don’t see Petro as a leader, I see him joining with enthusiasm. Colombia doesn’t carry that much diplomatic weight,” stresses the author of Why are we so narrow-minded? A Brief International History of Colombia.
“If Lula were elected in Brazil, we would already be talking about a progressive, democratic bloc that could begin to address some of the issues on the region’s agenda that were promoted and developed during the so-called rosy wave of the early 1990s, 2000 “, stresses Arlene Tickner, Professor of International Relations at the Universidad del Rosario in Bogotá. In addition to the central importance of Latin American integration and the respect and promotion of human rights, the environment permeates Petro’s entire programmatic agenda and will become central to any international political strategy, he stresses. The new government will try to make Colombia a protagonist in protecting the environment and promoting a clean economy.
Beck agrees when he stresses that “the really important change on the map of Latin America will come when Lula runs first and then wins.” In that case, the former president will once again take the reins of this axis, at least from a symbolic point of view, because Brazil’s history shows that it can afford the luxury of turning its back, if it so chooses, to the rest of the region. In any case, Lula would potentially become Petro’s most important reference on the international board. The future president of Colombia will try to assemble a large Latin American progressive bloc, also with López Obrador and even with Pedro Castillo, predicts analyst Sergio Guzmán from the consultancy Colombia Risk Analysis. Finally, it could clash with the United States on the issue of counter-narcotics, seeking closer ties with Cuba in addition to rapprochement with Venezuela.
“I also see a potentially larger Chinese presence in Colombia due to the very precarious fiscal situation that the country is in, which will need some kind of creditors,” he warns. A plan that the Asian giant was already accelerating during Duque’s tenure in the face of withdrawals from US investors and the space left vacant by Washington.