Jun 20, 2022 4:39pm03
Updated 3 hours ago
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Gustavo Petro was elected President of Colombia at the third attempt
The news went around the world: Gustavo Petro is the first elected leftwing president in Colombia’s history. But what kind of left does he represent exactly?
In the second round of the presidential elections on Sunday (June 19), Petro received 50.44% of the votes against 47.31% of his opponent, construction magnate Rodolfo Hernández, after more than 99.99% of the votes counted.
Petro is the latest case of a Latin American left coming to power on a wave of social discontent over political class, inequality and economic stagnation. As of 2020, the list also includes Luis Arce in Bolivia; Pedro Castillo, in Peru; Xiomara Castro, in Honduras; and Gabriel Boric in Chile.
These and other representatives of the region congratulated the newly elected President of Colombia. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, also on the left, said in a series of tweets: “Gustavo Petro’s triumph is historic.
But there are big differences between these rulers. And since he was elected mayor of Bogotá in 2011, comparisons between Petro and other leftwing leaders in the region have surfaced.
Having secured the presidency of Latin America’s third most populous country, Petro’s position on the political spectrum becomes even more important.
Like Lopez Obrador?
Petro was active in the urban and nationalist guerrilla movement of the April 19th Movement (M19) in the 1970s and 1980s a past that led many opponents to associate him with the radical left during the election campaign.
But the M19 was demobilized in 1990 and Petro emerged as a moderate politician in his third attempt at the presidency after being elected Senator.
Credit, EPA
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Gustavo Petro was elected President of Colombia at the third attempt.
“The moderation of some proposals meant that he was seen by a section of the population as a centreleft candidate rather than a radical leftist,” said Patricia Muñoz Yi, director of the postgraduate program in political science at the Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, Colombia.
In fact, Petro denied that Colombia needs to embrace socialism and that he intends to resort to expropriation or constitutional reforms to allow for his reelection, as other leftwing Latin American presidents have done.
But he proposed changing the country’s economic system, reducing exploitation of natural resources, enacting agrarian reform to eliminate unproductive large estates, and offering state employment to people who cannot find work in the private sector.
“We will develop capitalism in Colombia,” Petro said in his victory speech on Sunday, June 19. “Not because we love it, but because we must first overcome premodernism in Colombia, feudalism.”
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Petro called Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro a dictator
Despite showing sympathy for former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez (whom many of his opponents have also tried to link with him) in the past, Petro has distanced himself from Chávez’s successor, Nicolás Maduro.
“If you ask me if Chávez was a dictator, I’ll say no. If you ask me if Maduro is a dictator today, I’ll say yes,” Petro told Newsweek magazine in 2018.
The Presidentelect of Colombia named former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Ecuadorian Rafael Correa as references for the left. But others see similarities between Petro and current Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador or AMLO as he is known.
Petro “comes from a tradition of the nationalist and antiimperialist left, perhaps somewhat similar to that inspired by López Obrador in Mexico,” according to Yann Basset, a professor of political science at the Universidad del Rosario in Bogotá.
Basset adds that Petro “has an aggressive style, with sometimes populist speeches, that arouses a lot of opposition and fears that his government may be somewhat authoritarian, again in the style of what happened in Mexico”.
Credit, Government of Mexico
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Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador publicly supported Petro at the end of the Colombian election campaign
López Obrador, now 68, was elected Mexico’s first leftwing president in seven decades in 2018. And this month, AMLO stirred controversy by backing Petro, saying the candidate faces a “dirty war” like he was doing in Mexico something Colombia’s foreign ministry called “meddling” in the country’s affairs.
How Boric?
There are also similarities between the way Petro takes over the presidency of Colombia and Gabriel Boric in Chile in December 2021. Analysts point out that both won their elections after social unrest that revealed exhaustion with the establishment and with their respective countries’ economic models.
Both Petro and Boric promised structural reforms to guarantee peace, with the state at the heart of their social, economic and environmental projects.
By electing Francia Márquez as vice president — the first black woman, feminist and environmentalist to hold the position — Petro demonstrated her willingness to confront issues of gender, race and climate, which a younger left like that represented by Boric too defends Yann Bassett.
He adds that all of this came despite tensions Petro’s campaign has faced from feminist sectors who have accused him of surrounding himself with “oldschool” politicians with a sexist vision.
On social issues, Colombia’s Presidentelect also defended women’s access to abortion and promised to guarantee the right to a diversity of sexual orientations.
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Colombia’s vicepresidentelect, Francia Márquez, breathed new life into Gustavo Petro’s campaign.
All of this, combined with his proposal to abolish illegal drug dealing, brings Gustavo Petro closer to figures like former Uruguayan President José Mujica another former guerrilla fighter than to other more classic leftwing politicians in the region.
But it is clear that the manifesto and the form of government are different things, especially in a polarized country with clear power struggles.
Adam Isaacson, the Washington Office for Latin American Affairs (WOLA) expert on Colombia, believes it’s not yet clear what kind of leftist ruler Petro will represent once he takes office in August.
His question is “Petro’s personality,” he explains. “Whether he’ll resist the controls on his power, or if he’ll be more like Boric, Mujica, or Lula and release part of his grip on command.”
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