Expectations before the arrival of Gustavo Petro to the presidency of Colombia

This weekend, Colombia opens a government: Gustavo Petro arrives at the Casa de Nariño to direct the destiny of the country until 2026. Different international delegations will arrive in the Colombian capital on Sunday to attend a historic inauguration, since Petro will become the first leftist president in Colombia.

One of the most important points of the Petro government is the bilateral relations with the United States. Climate change, peace agreements and migration will be the priorities on which the new Colombian government bases its relationship with the Biden administration.

For the analyst Sandra Borda, professor of political science at the Universidad de los Andes, the ideology of the Petro government is clear: “to achieve complete peace.”

For her, diplomatic appointments, both that of the next ambassador in Washington, Luis Gilberto Murillo, and the of the social and indigenous leader Leonor Zalabata Torres as her country’s ambassador to the United Nations, they seek to “open the space of Colombian diplomacy to minorities (…) and send the message to both the United States and the international community that Colombia’s priority is to expand its democracy and finish implementing the peace process that directly affects these types of communities.”

The peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) was signed in 2016, after four years of negotiations in Havana with the government of Juan Manuel Santos. The objective of the agreement was to put an end to more than 50 years of armed conflict in Colombia and allowed the reintegration of more than 13,000 former guerrillas into civilian life. Now, Petro has proposed starting the peace process with the National Liberation Army (ELN).

Petro’s international agenda will be focused on “the settlement of the previous peace process and the beginning of a peace with the movements that have not yet been demobilized,” said the analyst.

Andrés Macías, an international analyst, said that the appointment of the new ambassador in Washington “opens the doors to a different political agenda or one that puts other issues on the agenda, such as the environmental issue.”

“There is a very important variable that is the fight against illicit crops, where a representative of the Colombian government will be there to promote environmental protection, but we are in a context where for many years the United States has tried to promote fumigation with glyphosate against illicit crops and it will be necessary to see how this political dispute is achieved to raise awareness”, he explained to the VOA.

Relations with Venezuela

Another area where more attention is focused is the restoration of relations with the neighboring country, Venezuela.

Analysts expect an economic revival in the border area. The Petro’s foreign minister met with his Venezuelan counterpart at the border at the end of July.

“Hopefully the cooperatives, the people dedicated to production (…) get ready to reactivate exchanges that should never have been suspended,” said the president-elect.

The course that relations between Colombia and the government of Nicolás Maduro may take at the hands of the new foreign minister, Álvaro Leyva, worries the spokesman in Colombia of the internal government of Venezuela of Juan Guaidó, Eduardo Battistini, who considers it important that the government of Petro be clear “that in Venezuela there is a regime that does not respect human rights”.

For the economist and analyst Philip Boland, it is valid to establish a “bridge” between the two countries “that have the same cultures”.

An opinion shared by Macías, pointing out that rapprochement is key, since the border population is the one that has been most affected, both on the Colombian side and on the Venezuelan side.

A rapprochement between the governments also affects security on the Colombian-Venezuelan border, where “the security component has been very complicated and has not been strengthened due to the lack of communication with Venezuelan authorities,” he adds.

The oil country would be key not only in commercial matters, but also for the implementation of the proposed peace agreement, according to the analyst from the Universidad de Los Andes.

“The peace process with the ELN, the last remaining guerrilla in Colombia, is only possible with the participation of Venezuela, having Venezuela on the same page of the peace process that the Petro administration wants to implement,” Borda told the VOA.

Expectations in Colombia

Putting the magnifying glass on domestic politics, experts consider that the new government must act gradually so as not to threaten stability.

For Andrés Macías, an international analyst, “it is a turning point in the politics that had been developing in the country. A different government arrives, with a proposal for change (…) and there is a lot of expectation about how this new cabinet is going to be organized”.

And although the administration opens with a majority in Congress, even with the support of additional parties that lost political participation in the presidential campaign and with the support of social organizations that established the strikes against the Duque administration, this requires greater compliance and does not guarantee success in sensitive areas, analysts say.

According to Borda, “that will make things easier for him, but he will have to show results and the areas in which he has to work, economic reactivation and others, are areas that will require rapid reforms, strong results.”

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