Gustavo Petro took office as Colombia’s president with huge expectations for change after a mandate, that of Iván Duque, that deepened the wounds of a society plagued by more than half a century of armed conflict. The relay at the Casa de Nariño on this occasion is in no way unprecedented in the country, starting with the election of Francia Márquez as Vice President, who comes from social movements and is the first woman to hold the position. It is also the first time that a left-wing leader, even more so a former guerrilla fighter, has risen to power in the South American country without hiding his distance from rulers like Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela and Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua and his apparent affinities to Boric as the new President of Chile. Petro has a very complex and in some ways grim panorama before him. The priority is getting closer to the Colombians, the new president assumed in his first speech, although the project with which Petro is pursuing his goal must also take on a difficult legacy with open fronts such as violence, the economy or the fight against poverty.
Turning the page does not mean starting from scratch, but rather recomposing, moving forward and building where possible. The environmental agenda is one of the President’s new axes with which he wants to push an energy transition and ultimately rethink the production model, apart from extractivist politics. This plan, which will serve to build bridges with the United States, which today is also aware of an ecological vision, is linked to the economic recovery in the context of a worrying increase in inflation and the depreciation of the peso against the dollar. The election of a renowned social democratic economist, José Antonio Ocampo, to head the Treasury was a first sign of maturity which, along with other appointments, foreshadows the will to form a pluralistic cabinet with experience in the public sector.
Petro’s arrival is also a boost for the new left taking hold in Latin America, committed to justifying feminism and environmental struggles, and distancing themselves from the human rights abuses of regimes like Venezuela or Nicaragua. Above all, however, it represents the desire of the majority for change in a deeply divided society. Vice-President Francia Márquez embodies all the symbolism of this turning point and the break with the old Colombia and its elites: First of all, the desire for “total peace”, as the president himself called it. That is to complete, or at least deepen, the application of the peace accords signed in 2016 with the extinct FARC. The goal must be to demobilize the National Liberation Army (ELN), the last guerrillas active in the country, to move forward in the crushing and subjugation of the Clan del Golfo, the main drug cartel operating in Colombia today. It is a plan beset by difficulties: Iván Duque leaves the baton with many gaps and a deep social dissatisfaction that largely explains the choice of Gustavo Petro and also points to his first and fundamental challenge.