“Today begins the government of life, of peace”

Before the president of Congress, Roy Barreras, Gustavo Petro, was sworn in on August 7, as the first leftist head of state in the history of Colombia.

“I swear to God and I promise the people to faithfully comply with the Constitution and the laws of Colombia,” he assured.

Immediately after receiving the presidential sash from Barreras, and after the outgoing government did not grant the necessary permits for the new president to bring the liberator Simón Bolívar’s sword to the inauguration ceremony as his team had requested, Petro asked to bring the symbolic weapon to the Plaza de Bolívar, where the event takes place.

“As president, he asked the military house to bring Bolívar’s sword,” said the dignitary.

As a former member of the M-19 guerrilla, for Petro the sword of Simón Bolívar has a special meaning, since the disappeared insurgent group, remembered among other actions for the armed takeover of the Palace of Justice in 1985, had that weapon in its power for 17 years. The movement stole it in 1974 and returned it after its demobilization in 1990.

Subsequently, Petro swore in Francia Márquez as his new vice president, and who becomes the first Afro-descendant woman to hold that position in the country. Márquez replaces Martha Lucia Ramírez, who was the first woman to serve in the second most important position in the Government.

100,000 people participate in the ceremony, after Petro requested entry to the emblematic Plaza de Bolívar, in Bogotá, the presence of ordinary citizens and not only politicians and dignitaries as happened in previous years.

The King of Spain Felipe VI and 10 heads of state arrived in Bogotá to join the event. Among them, the presidents of Argentina, Alberto Fernández, and that of Chile, Gabriel Boric, to whom Petro joins in the new turn to the left in Latin America.

• Roy Barreras asks the ELN and drug trafficking groups to end the violence

The senator and president of the Colombian Legislative, Roy Barreras, gave a speech after taking the oath of Gustavo Petro as the new leader of the Executive.

After briefly recounting the decades of violence caused by guerrillas such as the FARC and the so-called paramilitary groups, the legislator extolled the fact that for the first time in the country’s history the Presidency is occupied by a left-wing president, According to his words, he will defend social equity and the peace agreement reached between the demobilized FARC and the government of former president, Juan Manuel Santos.

“For the first time a democratic leftist government has arrived in Colombia, it is a break in history,” he assured.

Subsequently, Barreras made a direct call to the groups outside the law who have taken up arms to cease the violence.

“Let us defend the legacy of peace, We have come to tell the ELN: lay down your arms, Gustavo Petro’s victory shows that political violence has no justification, the path is peace and it is now (…) To the drug traffickers, for the sake of total peace, we say stop killing, There will be no way to advance in Congress in a justice reform if they continue to kill social leaders,” he said.

• Outgoing government does not grant permits to display Bolívar’s sword at the investiture

As a former member of the M-19 guerrilla, for Petro the sword of Simón Bolívar has a special meaning, since the disappeared insurgent group, remembered among other actions for the armed takeover of the Palace of Justice in 1985, had that weapon in its power for 17 years. The movement stole it in 1974 and returned it after its demobilization in 1990.

Petro hoped that the sword would accompany him during his journey from the Palacio de San Carlos to the Plaza de Bolívar, where his possession was made official. But official sources quoted by the local press confirmed that the team in charge of the new president’s investiture ceremony did not obtain the necessary permits from the outgoing government to remove her from the Casa de Nariño, where he rests.

So that the new president could take her on his tour this Sunday, the organizing team had obtained different insurance policies in order to protect her from any eventuality. Even so, the authorization was not granted.

• Petro appoints the heads of the Ministries of Justice and Housing

A few hours before officially taking office, Gustavo Petro announced new members of his cabinet. This Sunday he announced that the lawyer and former magistrate of the Superior Council of the Judiciary, Néstor Osuna, will be the new Minister of Justice of Colombia.

“Néstor Osuna, an Externado lawyer who was a magistrate of the Superior Council of the Judiciary, will be the Minister of Justice. Judicial independence, the fight against corruption and citizen access to the judicial system will be pillars of a justice reform” Petro published through his Twitter account.

Likewise, Petro reported that Catalina Velasco will be the new Minister of Housing. She is an expert in habitat and planning and who was Secretary of Planning during the Petro Administration as mayor of Bogotá.

“One of his responsibilities will be to lead a true public policy of social housing in Colombia,” said the new leader of the Executive.

• Cultural events and indigenous representation take the investiture day

The change of command ceremony has been preceded by multiple parades and folklore acts that run through the main streets of the Colombian capital.

The indigenous communities that came to Bogotá from different parts of the country stand out.

All in the midst of a packed agenda that also includes the participation of the emblematic carnival of blacks and whites, samples of Andean music, exhibitions of plastic arts and graffiti, among others.

Petro promised to inaugurate a “multicolor” democracy, after assuring that “more popular organization throughout Colombia” is necessary.

“The President of the Republic summons them to organize themselves and undoubtedly that plurality, that multiculturalism, that multicolored spectrum that should be that of the popular organization must be unified in the midst of diversity, coordinated, connected with each other,” Petro said on Saturday 6 August, in a “popular and spiritual” investiture act in front of people from indigenous, Afro, peasant and ethnic peoples from all over the country.

• Venezuelan opponent asks Petro to protect his country’s exiles

Juan Pablo Guanipa, an opposition leader in Venezuela, asked the new president of Colombia on August 7 to “protect the persecuted and political exiles” of his country who are in Colombia.

“Ensuring the protection of the politically persecuted and exiled Venezuelans in their homeland is an obligation acquired by Colombia in international law. (President Nicolás) Maduro will try to lay hands on this dissidence, the Colombian State and its institutions are the last wall of containment so that they don’t end up in the dungeons of the dictatorship,” said the former deputy in a press release.

Colombia is the country in the world that has received the most Venezuelan refugees: more than 2.2 million people. Under the outgoing administration of Iván Duque, Bogotá launched a statute to regularize those who migrated to the neighboring nation.

Now, the opposition of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro asks the first leftist president in Colombia to maintain the protection of these exiles and “firmly support the cause for the recovery of democracy in Venezuela.”

Petro, whose victory at the polls was welcomed by the Maduro regime, announced that he will restore relations with Caracas, completely broken since 2019.

• President of Argentina invites Petro to an official visit and supports talks with the ELN

Prior to the official start of the investiture, the head of state of Argentina, Alberto Fernández, met with Gustavo Petro, who will pay “an official visit” to his country in the “next few months”.

“We have carefully followed the proposals and guidelines to achieve total peace, both during the electoral campaign and after the victory. We are determined to continue and strengthen Argentina’s commitment and support for peace in Colombia,” Fernández said, quoted by his office. , and also assured that they need “an active Colombia on the path of Latin American integration.”

According to the Argentine government, during the bilateral meeting the two leaders advanced “in a potential bilateral agenda in political, social, economic and commercial matters.”

Fernández, another of the great allies of the Latin American left-wing bloc, supported the announcement by the new Colombian president about talks for an eventual peace agreement with the guerrilla group calling itself the National Liberation Army (ELN).

• “The main challenge that Petro has is the economic one”

The popular left-wing leader has several challenges ahead of him, but the root of the solution to the great expectations generated by his election, mainly among the neediest communities, is the country’s economic growth.

To do this, the new president points to an ambitious tax reform with which he hopes to finance social spending and maintain financial development.

In an interview with France24, the researcher from the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation, Daniela Garzón, stressed that the president will have to face high rates of unemployment and inflation. The level of unemployment stood at 11.3% last June, according to the National Administrative Department of Statistics (Dane). And the cost of living reached 10.21% last July. Both were increased after the Covid-19 pandemic.

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According to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the level of poverty in the country was 36.3% in 2021 and is projected to increase to 39.2% in 2022.

Colombia is the country in the region where poverty will grow the most, according to ECLAC estimates.

With EFE and local media