Yesterday, August 7th, Colombia marked a historic day on the calendar: For the first time in the country’s history, a left-wing president took office. His name is Gustav Petro and will replace the Conservative Ivan Duque Marquez. The 62-year-old economist and leader of the left-wing coalition Pacto Histórico, Petro, was mayor of Bogota ran for president for three years and twice before that, he has one too handed over by guerrillas in the April 19 Movement (M-19), a revolutionary group that withdrew from armed struggle in the 1990s. The Vice President took office at his side France MarquezAfro-Colombian activist, lawyer and politician who will become the first black woman to hold office in Colombia (and the second in all of South America) and represents a major redemption for the country’s historically underrepresented Afro-October minority.
In front of a cheering crowd and the most important offices in the country and across South America, Petro was sworn into the hands of the Senate President. Roy Barreras, who later emphasized that “for the first time since independence, a progressive, democratic and left-wing president is installed”. Petro, who focused his entire electoral campaign on agrarian reform and natural resource redistribution (a key issue in a country deeply unequal in terms of land distribution), on the energy transition and on more gender equality in the country, in his first speech as President, he reiterated that he will strive for it reduce inequalitiesfight against climate change e Combating international drug traffickinghow criminal gangs and armed groups who are still sowing terror in the country.
The first speech
The President said he was thrilled “to be in this square today alongside the sword of Libertador Simón Bolívar, which must remain drawn and will only return to his care when peace is achieved.” “It is time for a change – he continued – and we can make it happen together and in peace, which contradicts those who said we could never come to power. If we have been able to achieve the goal of the presidency, we can try to reach a peace agreement that will end six decades of internal conflict.” The reference is made to the 2016 Peace Agreement aimed at putting an end to 60 years of bloody civil war involving Colombia’s main armed group, the The Farcfrom the dissolution of which two dissident fronts emerged after the signing of the treaty.
Petro recalled that the truth commission calculates that the internal conflict causes a toll of 800,000 dead. “We want to build a country of life and not of death,” he said Appeal to all armed groups active in the country so that they accept “a path of dialogue and peace in exchange for benefits on the part of justice”. Referring to the drug trade, Petro claimed that “A million people died in 40 years in armed clashes while dead in North America 70,000 people for overdose“. And he spoke of the need for “new international treaties to combat drug trafficking,” since the anti-drug policy applied to date “is a Fail“.
Cover photo: EPA / Mauricio Duenas Castaneda
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