The opening of the new legislature in the Colombian Congress was marked by President Gustavo Petro’s call for a “great national agreement” focused on uniting the country around “agreeing on changes” regarding his reforms.
One of the main ones, the health system, was abandoned in the last legislature, and the labour reform is still pending in parliament.
The Voice of America spoke with political analysts about what Petro, who in August enters his third year of government, faces in carrying out his ambitious social reforms, although he achieved it approval of the pension reformits national development plan and the ban on bullfighting.
“In the third year of any president in Colombia, it is not enough to be able to carry out reforms, because elections are coming and all those who are making decisions in parliament are already in power,” explained Pedro Viveros, political analyst and columnist for the newspaper The viewer.
“They are not only looking at the government that is in power, but they also have to think about their political future, so what could happen to the president is that he sits down and thinks about what reforms he can implement from those he is proposing,” he added.
Alejandro Alvarado, coordinator of the Governance and Democracy line of the Pares Foundation, agrees with this. He believes that much of what can be achieved in this period in many of its proposals will depend on whether the executive maintains a conciliatory tone during the development of the sessions to achieve their approval.
“For example, in the health reform we will see to what extent the president will build the reform he asks for and not the reform he wants, because the reform that he has to process ultimately has to reconcile the interests of the EPS and the businessmen who work around health services, who have had opposition in all attempts at reform,” Alvarado explained to the VOA.
The analyst believes that “this reform will have to be carried out and will ultimately be completed at the end of his term in 2026.”
For Viveros, the appointment of the new Minister of Politics, Juan Fernando Cristo, who was head of this portfolio in the government of former President Juan Manuel Santos (2010-2018), and who is seen by parliament as a trustworthy person, will also be key to the approval of his health and labor reforms.
“He is the third minister of President Petro’s policy, one per year, you could say. Minister Cristo has certain characteristics and that is that he is more of a bridge-builder than a shore-builder, that is to say, he likes to build bridges rather than create divisions in the discussion and that is very important and can benefit the president as long as there is coordination in what he intends,” he stressed.
Analysts agree that the challenge for the government is to find “common ground” with the opposition, which accuses it of “imposing its proposals” so that these can advance in the Senate and House of Representatives, where Petro does not have the necessary majorities.
“With the majority in parliament, which he does not have, it is very difficult to push through reforms, and I see that with each passing minute the president is coming to terms with reality and he knows that what he had as his goal of holding a constituent assembly to push through his projects is impossible,” said Viveros.
He added that “it seems that he has already understood it by removing it from his political language and it is up to him to resort to the law, via Congress, as has happened to all presidents.”
In this regard, Alvarado points out that “the arrival of former minister Cristo to the cabinet marked the beginning of a new attempt by the president to gain majorities in Congress, especially by uniting part of the La U and Liberal parties (independents) that were entering as dissidents.”
Finally, they emphasize that in the midst of the ambitious changes that he must convince the Colombian political center and the right-wing opposition parties of, the importance of the president’s statement that he will “accelerate” the implementation of the peace agreement is the “path” that will determine the future of his reforms.
“The path was to accelerate the implementation of the peace process signed between the State and the defunct guerrilla group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in 2016, and we assumed that a man of peace like Petro would begin implementing the peace process, but he didn’t do so for two years and in the third he realized that this was the path and that is positive,” Viveros concluded.
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