Is Gustavo Petro offering ‘renewed hope’ to Colombians?

Colombia’s left-wing president has had a busy first seven months in office and, after his government began negotiations with armed groups, secretary-general of the UN António Guterres has claimed there is “renewed hope” for peace and prosperity in the troubled country as it struggles to emerge from over half a century of war. However, as I found out, both Petro’s supporters and his detractors see a long and treacherous road ahead.

In June of 2022 Gustavo Petro Urrego was elected the 34th president of Colombia. It was his third run for what is surely one of the hardest jobs on the planet. Born in the Caribbean department of Bolívar in 1960, Petro moved with his family to the capital soon after, and it was near Bogotá, in the salt-mining town of Zipaquirá, that Petro began his decade-long career as a member of the M-19, an armed group calling for more democratic elections and redistribution of wealth. Far from hiding out in the jungle or terrorizing farmers with landmines, Colombia’s future president was working for the rights of displaced Colombians living in insecure and unregistered accommodation, though he was imprisoned for a year and a half. When the M-19 demilitarized in 1990, he studied economics in Colombia and Belgium before being elected senator and rising to fame by exposing the ‘false positives’ scandal (in which the government of Alvaro Uribe paid army officers to kidnap and murder around 6,400 civilians, dressing them up as guerrilla fighters in order to be seen to be winning the war). He endured a catastrophic term as mayor of Bogotá during which a dispute with binmen led to rubbish piling up in the streets and he was later impeached, before being reinstated by the supreme court. After 2015, he devoted himself to trying to become Colombia’s president, founding a coalition of left and centre-left parties, Historic Pact for Colombia, in 2021 to propel himself to power.

In 2022, Petro campaigned on an ambitious platform of free higher education for all, expanding public healthcare, promoting gender and ethnic equality, land reform, improved environmental protection (including ending new contracts for fossil fuel exploration), investment in green energy, and bringing total peace to a country still beset by drug cartels, right-wing paramilitary groups and left-wing guerrillas. All this was to be paid for by progressive taxation on higher earners, big business and the church.

Competing in the run-off against Rodolfo Hernandez, a businessman whose campaign was largely based on him doing dances on TikTok and talking vaguely about tackling corruption, he only won by a whisker (earning 50.44%). It is safe to say, then, that many Colombians were sceptical, even if a majority of the 20-odd million voters did support him at the ballot box.

Rodolfo Hernandez, who describes himself as the “King of TikiTok,” famously declared that he admired Adolf Hitler - only later to clarify that he had meant to say Albert Einstein

In the first months of his administration, he has managed to pass ambitious tax reforms with amendments that weaken but by no means neuter the legislation; while he lost about 20% of the projected revenue increase, higher taxes for the highest earners and companies extracting fossil fuels have put an extra $4 billion in the government’s kitty which they propose to use to expand the welfare state. It remains to be seen how successful the state will be in collecting this revenue. He has also passed legislation that allows the government to begin peace negotiations (but not a truce) with the dogmatic ELN (National Liberation Army), as well as right-wing paramilitary groups and drug cartels. He was always going to be busy, especially given that presidential terms are four years with no right of re-election (although that didn’t stop Alvaro Uribe).

Now the government’s proposed health system reform is on the agenda and it seems the wheels might be coming off Petro’s fragile coalition. Meanwhile, inflation rose for the ninth consecutive month, hitting 13.28%. Having won his mandate with a fraction over half of the popular vote, Petro’s approval dipped to 40% last month according to a poll by Invamer.

Six months after he took office, I set out to ask an entirely unrepresentative, but hopefully broad selection of Colombians what they think of their president, how his administration is faring so far and his ability to overcome the challenges faced by the country. The people who shared their opinions with me did not all agree about what those problems were, but several clear themes emerged as well as some interesting outliers. I believe all the people I spoke to had Spanish as their first language, though there are at least sixty languages spoken in the ethnically diverse republic. The majority of the people I spoke to were university-educated, more than half were men, and most are based in cities far from the violence that blights rural Colombia. Below is a selection of just some of these conversations.

Antonio, 39, grew up near Medellin, but until a year ago he lived in the enormous and sparsely populated grassland state of Meta, where he drove a milk truck, before he came to Bogotá in order to care for his mother. He now works as security for a bar in the historic La Candelaria neighbourhood.

This government has “new faces, but it’s the same people. Politics is like an escalator that keeps going around. The politicians come to power, they sell us lies and they take our money.” Antonio has a point here; the lack of any clear majority in congress necessitates a very broad coalition between Petro’s Historic Pact and the traditional parties many of whose leaders are seen, rightly, as corrupt. Petro risks compromising his own credibility by working with these actors to pass legislation.

Antonio’s experience of living in Meta, parts of which are still dominated by FARC dissidents who refused to lay down their arms after 2016, has led him to be sceptical about the peace process. “The government says the guerrillas have gone, but if you go to San José del Guaviare [in Meta], there they are. I have seen them with my own eyes. I have worked for them. But the government says they don’t exist.”

“They [the guerrillas] come and collect taxes. It might be two million pesos [about £350], it might be more. […] If you pay the money then there are no problems and you go on living your life, but if you don’t want to pay or you can’t pay, you better get out of there or they will fuck you.”

Whilst it is generally acknowledged that groups such as the FARC dissidents and the ELN are still active in many parts of the country, Antonio’s doubts about the possibility of demobilization where there is so much easy money to be made from organised crime is something that came up in many conversations.

Ricardo, 62, is a systems engineer from Aracataca, the birthplace of Nobel prize winning novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez. He is much more interested in getting me to wear a Marimonda mask that is typical of Barranquilla carnival, but he does agree to share his opinions on politics in the end.

He argues that Petro must be given at least a year to get his reforms under way before he is judged. Nevertheless, he believes that some of Petro’s initial moves, such as resumption of diplomatic relations with Venezuela and tax reform, bode well.

He is enthusiastic about “putting the divisions of the past and this failed drug war behind us,” but concedes that Petro has “inherited a polarised country.” He thinks this administration has the chance to “build an inclusive society,” by investing in “education, infrastructure and the green economy.” For Ricardo, the great challenge and risk is the fragile coalition that the government has built with other parties in congress.

Costeños (people from the coast) mock cachacos (people from the interior/the elite) by wearing a mask of a man with a penis on his face; Petro is the first costeño president for half a century

Andrés, 25, is a masters student in Public Policy and an activist for the right wing Democratic Centre party of former president and strongman Alvaro Uribe. I have a hard time interpreting his gomelo drawl, but this is my best shot.

He applauds the beginnings of negotiations for a peace with the National Liberation Army (ELN) and is supportive of how the administration is giving greater representation to members of indigenous communities.

Andrés thinks the first year is crucial as a test of Petro’s legitimacy, but he simultaneously holds that Petro is “doomed to failure […] because of the internal conflicts in his party and the parties he has allied with [through his Historic Pact coalition].” Meanwhile, he thinks Petro’s cabinet, to which he has appointed ministers from across the political spectrum, could also be an Achilles heel for the administration.

Whilst he credits Petro with being the first president of Colombia who represents and works for marginalised communities, he does not think Petro has shown the leadership qualities necessary to bring the nation together. He points to the “turbulence and litigation” of Petro’s time as mayor of the capital as evidence that “this guy does not know how to govern.”

He was one of the few people I spoke to who was upset by Petro’s use of tweets to direct the national conversation, or “governing by twitter.” In particular, Andrés thinks Petro is at risk of becoming a laughing stock due to his rash behaviour online: making incorrect claims and criticising the governments of neighbouring countries (the parliament of Peru recently voted to make Petro a persona non grata in the neighbouring country for his vociferous support for deposed and imprisoned ex-president Pedro Castillo). This behaviour seems particularly rash to Andrés because Colombia is very much in need of foreign direct investment if he is to bring about the green revolution that he has promised to instigate.

Mafe, is an anthropologist and primary school teacher from Bogotá. She coordinates international volunteers working with the YMCA, the same project I worked on four years ago, although we only had the pleasure of meeting recently.

She is very hopeful about the new administration, but has doubts about Petro’s leadership capabilities. She sees Petro as “supremely stubborn […] which is part of what has brought him to where he is,” but could also be a weakness.

For her, this administration represents a chance to “give a voice to those who historically haven’t had one in our country,” after fifty years of worsening inequality. She sees the creation of a ministry for equality as a success, but waits to see if this will deliver real change.

The overarching challenge that Mafe sees is the division within the country and the long-held habit of defending ones traditions and way of life with violence. She points out that the election was exceptionally close and suggests that many people voted more out of opposition to the other candidate than out of support for the candidate they chose: the anti-Petristas, who wanted anyone but Petro, and the anti-Uribistas, who wanted anyone but another belligerent, right-wing leader in the mould of Alvaro Uribe.

Having composed a cabinet not only ethnically and socially diverse, but diverse in its politics, he is now struggling to control ministers. The minister for the environment and the chancellor have repeatedly contradicted one another in recent months on the question of whether the current administration will be handing out any more contracts for fossil fuel exploration. Mafe is worried that the recent sacking of the centre-left health minister, Alejandro Gaviria, indicates Petro is losing experienced and qualified members of government in preference for ideological fealty. Furthermore, she sees a great risk that if Petro’s presidency is seen as a failure and his successor undoes or discredits the reforms, this could see the end of Colombia’s experiment with progressive or left-leaning leadership for a generation.

Mafe with the lovely YMCA volunteers and teachers at Colegio Fe y Alegría Torquigua, Bogotá

José Luis, a taxi driver in Barranquilla, lived in Miami for 16 years and his two children still live in the US. He returned to Colombia after his wife died six years ago. He wanted to be around people he could banter with: people who understood him. He also had problems with his immigration status in the US after he was three times stopped whilst drink driving. Our conversation may indicate more than anything else what a breeding ground for violent, reactionary politics the Floridian metropolis has become. But it also points to the depth of division in Colombian society and the ignorance that underwrites it.

"Someone needs to put a bullet in the president. Someone needs to get rid of him.”

I’m not sure how literal he is being, but I ask him if he doesn’t think that killing elected officials might make the country’s problems worse. In reply, he asserts that Petro was not democratically elected, but paid to become president, though he is not sure who Petro paid.

He sees Petro’s progressive politics as a moral threat. In particular, he is concerned about the rise of recreational drug use in Colombia. Possession of small quantities of drugs such as cocaine and marijuana has been decriminalized in Colombia, but Petro has indicated he would like to go further, recently giving a speech at the UN in which he asked, “Which is more toxic to humans: cocaine, coal, or oil?”

“It is very hard to start taking drugs with cocaine, although some do, but it's more common to start with marijuana. It is the gateway to misery.” He concedes,  “I know people who are forty or so and they smoke marijuana without taking it further, but young people can't help themselves."

I ask what problems the country faces, aside from drug use. “We have so much corruption in this country […] and politicians who are lying to the people, like your Boris did with the separation [Brexit].” Whilst Petro has not yet been accused to printing lies on the side of a bus, it is not hard to see how the sheer number of commitments he made on the campaign trail will lead to disillusionment when inevitably many of these are side-lined. Meanwhile, Petro is struggling to keep his own name out of the mud, recently calling for the attorney general’s office to investigate his son, Nicolas Petro, after allegations of corruption relating to the peace process.

José Luis is also upset by the legalization of abortion. "This will incite young people to have sex. Girls who are 13 and 14 will have sex and then get an abortion and that's it. The president is corrupting society." Although this change came about before Petro was elected, as a result of a supreme court decision, there must be many others in Colombia who, not unjustifiably, suspect that their conservative values are under threat.

Which came first, Miami or the reactionary right?

Daniela, 25, is a project manager working in environmental education.

She thinks Petro is very well qualified for his role because “he walked a long road to get there.” She also respects that he has “struggled for his dreams and he has achieved the impossible,” but she is left feeling disillusioned by perceived cronyism and the government’s failure to fulfil the campaign promise to dismantle ESMAD, the Colombian riot police who Human Rights Watch accuse of “killings […] beatings, sexual abuse, and arbitrary detention of demonstrators and bystanders.” Daniela describes them as a “band of assassins,” and believes the government reforms to the institution are merely superficial.

She is doubtful Petro can achieve the structural changes he has promised in a four-year term, and she doesn’t necessarily want him to either: “Every stone or brick is important when you are building a house, so you must go carefully and slowly.”

“Colombia has always been lacking in its attention to environmental issues and has underinvested in environmental protection, in education about the environment, and also in terms of science. This will take many years to achieve. Another big, big, big challenge is the transition to renewable energy.”

With an eye on the potential for Petro’s progressive ideas to deepen division in society, Daniela is concerned to see how the government will seek take care of those “communities who rely for their livelihoods on fossil fuel extraction industries.”

It is clear from all of these conversations that few in Colombia is getting carried away; they feel the weight of their history and expect no quick fixes. For Petro’s supporters, the elation of victory last summer has long passed. His enemies watch the chaos and indiscipline of his cabinet with satisfaction, and are deploying disinformation about Petro’s drug policy and democratic legitimacy with some success. The one thing that everyone seems to agree on is that, whether desirable or not, the structural changes he has argued for will not come to pass inside his presidential term. Nevertheless, the president still seems to have the initiative. Petro does not seem to have developed the kind of cult of personality that for example followers of Mexico’s president AMLO or Bolivia’s possibly soon to be president again ex-president Evo Morales. Most Colombians seem simply too worldly to fall for that kind of thing. Hope there certainly is, but a wary hope, a cautious hope.