The Paper's special contributor Hu Yukun
On June 19, the results of the second round of voting in the Colombian presidential election were announced. Gustavo Petro, the candidate of the left-wing campaign alliance "Colombian Historical Convention Union", was elected as the new president with just over 50.4% of the vote, beating the candidate of the center-right "Anti-Corruption Governors' Union" Rudolf Hernandez. Petro's victory marked his goal of becoming the first left-wing president in Colombian history.
Behind Petro's majority of support is colombian society's unbearable poverty, corruption, political violence and many other problems. Petro's historic election reflects the Colombian people's eagerness for change. However, in the face of accumulated problems and a fragmented and polarized political ecology, it is not easy for Petro to stand firm and fulfill his promises, and Colombia's escape from the predicament is not a day's work.
"Outsiders" Duel: Why Did the Former Guerrillas Fight Back in Three Battles?
Colombia's 2022 presidential election is the third attempt by left-wing candidate Petro to challenge the throne. The atypical politician, a former "M-19" guerrilla, senator and even economist, ran twice in 2010 and 2018, losing the first and second rounds of voting, but has also seen himself grow from an out-of-the-box "intruder" to the left camp's best hopes of entering the presidential palace.
His third presidential election, in which he was elected, saw an unprecedented campaigning dynamic. In the first round of voting, candidates representing the traditional forces of the center and the right were out, with Petro competing for a civil engineer, a $100 million construction mogul and another atypical populist politician known as "Colombian Trump", Rudolf Hernandez.
The "outsiders" who belong to the left and right camps enter the final showdown of the presidential election. Petro shouted radical campaign slogans, and Hernandez went against the traditional model, relying heavily on social networking platforms such as Tik Tok for campaign campaigns, as well as "bad deeds" such as slapping parliamentarians and making foul mouths at campaign opponents, which has created enough gimmicks for Colombia.
Of course, among the points of view of the left-right showdown, the most concerned focus of the international community is whether Petro will rewrite the country's political ecology and achieve left-wing governance. Today, Not only is Petro making history himself, but his running mate, a former cleaner and single mother, Francia Márquez, will also be the first female black vice president in the country's history. Petro couldn't hide his excitement, claiming that the result was "a victory for God and the people." Thousands of people in the capital, Bogotá, took to the streets and squares to celebrate.
After Argentina, Peru, Mexico, Chile, Bolivia and Honduras, Colombia also "turned left" in the latest general election, adding to Venezuela, which will become the eighth country in Latin America to achieve left-wing governance. But in fact, due to its association with the anti-government extremist forces over the past half-century, the left has been unpopular and even "stigmatized" in Colombia for a long time. Therefore, under the special national conditions of the country, the left-wing governance can indeed be called a rare "change of heaven".
The reason for the change of day is often that the whole society can't stand the status quo, first of all, the hard wounds in Colombia's economic and fiscal problems, and the controversy over fiscal and tax reform that it has triggered. Compared with the pre-epidemic era, Colombia's fiscal deficit and public debt accounted for 8.9% and 61% of GDP in 2020, respectively. If the open source and cost-saving measures are not implemented by 2024, the Colombian government, which was originally relatively strict in fiscal discipline, will be difficult to sustain.
As a result, the government of the current President, Ivan Duke, introduced fiscal reform and privatization of public health services last year in an attempt to solve the fiscal dilemma by raising taxes on the majority of the population and reducing the burden of government spending on public services, which triggered months of nationwide strikes and protests at the end of April of that year, which eventually forced the Colombian government to withdraw the original reform bill, and the then Finance Minister Alberto Carraskiya resigned in a daze.
In this nationwide protest, the hardship of people's livelihood is enough to make people dissatisfied, and the high inequality and corruption have exacerbated this sentiment. According to the World Bank, income inequality in Colombia has begun to worsen again since 2018, with the top 10 percent of high-income groups accounting for 40 percent of the country's income, equivalent to 10 times that of the bottom 20 percent. In addition, this economic inequality is also evident among different ethnic groups, with minority groups such as blacks being the most visible victims.
In this presidential election, Petro and Hernandez invariably held high the banner of anti-corruption as an important campaign topic for themselves, which shows how serious the problem of corruption is in the country. Corruption is widespread in Colombia's governments at all levels, the judiciary, the military and the police, and as early as 2013, a survey by the NGO Transparency International showed that 81 percent of Colombians believe corruption exists in all political parties in the country and 79 percent believe that the legislature is also corrupt. Even the military and police departments, which defend national security and social order, are seen by most people as corrupt institutions.
In recent years, Colombia's average annual crime rate has increased by nearly 40%, the public health service system has lost $160 million worth of funds, hundreds of millions of dollars in the public education budget have been misappropriated, businessmen often face corruption in the judiciary to protect their economic rights, and corruption has caused a loss of 1% of GDP per year... The people abhor this, believing that corruption is a stubborn disease that cannot be eradicated in the existing political ecology, and that there is no hope of improvement without radical political change.
What is more worrying to the public is that although the Colombian civil war ended in 2016 and the Colombian government signed a peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia ("FARC"), it did not completely solve the serious problem of social security.
At present, the peace negotiations between the Colombian government and another far-left rebel, the National Liberation Army, have stalled, and the former number two person of "Gowu" has declared in 2019 to reorganize "Gowu" and ally with the "National Liberation Army" on the grounds that "the government has betrayed the peace agreement". Armed conflict and political violence that have lasted for nearly 60 years and killed nearly 200,000 civilians remain a nightmare in the region, represented by Katatungbo, which has been in a state of firefight for a long time, coupled with the de facto control of drug trafficking organizations over parts of the country's territory.
When people are tired and disappointed with the old faces who cannot solve the people's livelihood concerns, and The other political spectrum of Petro and his partner Márquez give voters a refreshing feeling from appearance to campaign platform, compared to the two, it is only a matter of time before the left makes history.
After a long period of accumulation, the dilemma of Gobia in the left-wing era is still difficult to solve
In his winning speech on Sunday night, Petro claimed that "what is coming is real change", and the BBC pointed out that Petro and Márquez represented a "new era in Colombia". Looking at its campaign platform, "seeking change" can be described as everywhere:
Narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor, developing a green economy, agricultural reform, taxing the rich, forming a "Ministry of Equality", promoting national infrastructure construction, protecting the rights and interests of women and sexual minorities, reforming public health care, investing in public sector services, providing free university education... The president-elect, who claims that neoliberalism will eventually "destroy the country," can't wait to present a comprehensive picture of leading the country "from right to left."
If we want to reverse the fundamental direction of national development, it is naturally impossible to have a smooth sailing. As early as the campaign, Petro and Márquez received numerous death threats from rebel groups and even cancelled campaigns to go to coffee-growing areas in early May because of safety concerns. After being elected president, Petro will face more difficult governance resistance than personal security issues.
The first question to pursue its decades-old vision of left-wing governance is how to cut through the existing economic shackles. Colombia is one of the major economies in Latin America, and if you look at the macro data, the country's economic situation seems to be quite good: GDP in 2021 increased by 10.6% year-on-year, compared with 2.8% in 2019 before the epidemic; According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Colombia's GDP will grow by 6.1% this year.
But under the macro data, the structural problems of the Colombian economy are highlighted. Due to the country's high dependence on international markets and import and export trade, mainly with specialty industries, it is more vulnerable to external shocks in the face of global problems or even crises. The potential threat of COVID-19 to domestic demand, trade, financial services, manufacturing supply chains and other areas that sustain economic growth has always existed, and inflation in the country has soared to its highest rate in 21 years (9.2%) since the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
At present, the national poverty rate in Colombia exceeds 42 per cent and the unemployment rate is as high as about 13 per cent. If it is necessary to solve the imminent livelihood problems and fulfill Petro's social welfare commitments, the government's financial pressure is not small. Previously, in order to cope with the impact of changes in the internal and external environment, the current government has increased fiscal expenditure, but fiscal revenue has decreased, resulting in a structural fiscal deficit and public debt problems.
In this regard, Petro's solution is not new, on the one hand, the collection of wealth taxes, on the other hand, the development of tourism and green energy, in order to ensure government revenue, replacing energy-dependent traditional economic industries. It is conceivable that such reforms will inevitably impact the vested interests of the traditional industry business community, and will also anger the traditional right-wing parties and conservative forces. If the business community reacts passively, or even actively confronts left-wing reforms, the result will be to weaken the country's business investment, jobs and economic development momentum, and tourism and green energy development will be impossible to talk about.
In contrast, in Colombia's fragmented political ecology, resistance to reform from the political arena is a direct threat that is highly likely. Petro overwhelmed Hernandez by 720,000 votes, but his "Colombian Historical Convention Alliance" won about 17 percent of the seats in both houses, far from meeting the governing standards of a stable majority. In a multiparty parliament, Petro can only choose to seek a majority consensus if he wants to pursue his governing platform; But seeking consensus means making the necessary compromises, and its commitment to voters is bound to be undermined and disappointed by its supporters.
On the one hand, other party politicians who have long questioned him, and on the other hand, collaborators and supporters, including Marquez, who are eager for fundamental change, how Petro can ensure that he wins the support of the majority of political parties on the premise of not losing the basic situation, and avoids becoming a two-headed and lonely family, is the basic premise of his reform steps.
After Petro's victory, the first to give a positive response was the "National Liberation Army", a macroscopic left-wing rebel. In a statement issued on June 20, the National Liberation Army said it would continue its "political struggle" and "military resistance" on the one hand, and open to dialogue with the future Petro government on the other. But they set the terms for advancing the peace process, including the Government's implementation of socio-economic reforms to achieve social inclusion and equity. If reaching Petro's set of reform goals is a precondition for resuming peace talks, that precondition is tough enough for Petro.
As for the "war on drugs" with no end in sight, it was described by Petro as a "complete failure": Colombia spends as much as 12% of GDP every year on defense and security, and the government spends a lot of money on the security sector, but it does not play an effective role. Petro proposed to address the root causes, namely agricultural reforms that encouraged farmers to stop growing drug crops. But to realize this vision, in addition to Colombia's own macroeconomic conditions and government financial support, much will depend on the situation of the overseas drug market, especially the strength of the US crackdown on the illegal drug trade.
It is foreseeable that Petro himself is still on a stable footing, and it remains to be seen whether Colombia's political ecology can really be "changed". In this sense, whether the left-wing road can lead the country out of its inherent predicament as soon as possible, I am afraid that all walks of life in Colombia after the election carnival will not be too optimistic. More importantly, in order to improve the current situation of the country, the left forces cannot exclude the participation of other traditional forces.
(Hu Yukun, Member of the China Translation Association and International Political Columnist)
Responsible editor: Zhu Zhengyong Photo editor: Jin Jie
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