Gustavo Petro’s election as president of Colombia in 2022 introduced hope and worry. For almost all of Colombians who supported Petro within the election’s second spherical, there was hope that the nation’s first left-wing president would ship the adjustments the nation wanted to progress by way of economics, politics and safety. The president performed a job in producing these hopeful expectations, promising huge financial overhauls of the nation’s well being and pension system. He outlined a “Complete Peace” plan that might resolve the armed conflicts with numerous felony, terrorist and rebel teams across the nation. He promised an expanded function for Colombian diplomacy globally that might result in the top of fossil fuels and a rethinking of the warfare on medicine.
Petro’s critics, in distinction, feared he would lead the nation down the trail of neighboring Venezuela. They considered his financial insurance policies as breaking Colombia’s free-market mannequin, hampering overseas funding, and dragging the nation’s progress engine down. They noticed a president who was a former M-19 guerrilla who wished to present a sweetheart deal to different left-wing rebel teams working within the nation. They had been involved about Petro’s authoritarian allies overseas, together with his shut relationship with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Additionally they nervous that Petro’s had his personal autocratic tendencies and wasn’t absolutely dedicated to democracy. In a worst-case state of affairs, they feared Petro would enact constitutional reforms to take care of energy at the same time as he mired the nation in financial decline.
Petro’s first two years in workplace have adopted neither essentially the most optimistic nor essentially the most pessimistic paths. The change promised by Petro by no means got here. As a substitute, Petro’s time period has been outlined by stagnation and political gridlock. The economic system, as a substitute of surging or collapsing, weakly plods alongside. Promised overhauls of the healthcare system and labor guidelines have stalled whereas a watered-down pension reform narrowly handed after years of debate. Given the dearth of progress, Petro has proposed to implement main governance reforms by way of referendum or constitutional rewrite. Whereas his critics worry these proposals will lead the nation down an authoritarian path, Petro has achieved not one of the legwork to truly transfer these adjustments ahead, suggesting they’re empty threats.
