The political dilemma of Colombia's leftist president
On August 7, 2022, Gustavo Petro succeeded his predecessor, Ivan Duque Marquez, as the first leftist president in Colombian history. And on the first anniversary of his rule, Petro is in deep political trouble.
On July 20, 2023, Dr. Scott McDonald, chief economist of Smith's Research & Gradings, a Washington-based analytical agency, Scott B. MacDonald, in an opinion piece on The National Interest, analyzed the major political resistance and scandals Petro currently faces, and expressed concern about the populist actions he may resort to in the dilemma.
On July 20, 2023, local time, Bogotá, Colombia, Colombian President Gustavo Petro spoke at the Congress.
McDonald divided Petro's nearly year in power into two phases, the first of which began when Petro took office in August 2022, and he pushed key policies and hoped that the center-left government would help Colombia move towards a more peaceful, green and economically equitable future. The second phase began with the failure of the healthcare reform bill in April 2023, followed by a cabinet reshuffle and other reform bills that also failed to pass. In June, two of Petro's core allies, former chief of staff Laura Sarabia and Ambassador to Venezuela, Armando Benedetti, caught the government by surprise after charges of abuse of power and illegal wiretapping.
McDonald believes that Petro's victory in 2022 is inspiring. A former member of M-19, the standard-bearer of the Colombian left and the mayor of the capital, Bogotá, he has inspired many young voters and other marginalized groups who are tired of center-right and conservative governments that are plagued by corruption scandals, human rights abuses and deal with the country's armed radical left in a tough way. Petro is seen as Colombia's new kind of leader who will clean up national politics and set a progressive agenda — including cutting the country's coal and oil sectors, pursuing greener policies and directing the country toward socio-economic justice.
Petro's first moves in office were to form a politically broad-based cabinet, pass a tax reform bill, and strike a deal to buy land from ranchers and distribute it to a landless rural population. At the same time, he succeeded in bringing the Colombian National Liberation Army (ELN), the country's largest surviving armed revolutionary and drug-trafficking organization, to the negotiating table as part of its "Total Peace" policy — an ambitious plan to minimize violence, protect civilians, and disband the country's many armed groups. He also resumed relations with Venezuela's Maduro regime in 2022, a major change in the direction of seeking to normalize borders and improve trade, in a very different way from that of his predecessor, Iván Duque.
The second phase began around April 2023, after his health care reform package failed to pass the country's lower house of parliament. In response, Petro led his government to the left, replacing seven cabinet members with leftists in an attempt to revive its reform program. Of particular note is the departure of the pro-market and internationally respected finance minister Jose Antonio Ocampo, who is seen by the country's left as a pacification of the center-right and right, whose earlier support was crucial to Congress passing legislation. He was replaced by Ricardo Bonilla, a former treasurer of Bogotá and a close ally of Petro 's.
The reshuffle of the Cabinet is crucial. Petro narrowly won a 50.47 percent majority in the second round of voting, and his party and allies failed to secure majorities in both houses of Congress, leaving him no longer able to rely on a more politically broad cabinet to pass its legislation. While Petro seems intent on having a group of ideologically more cohesive people around him to push his agenda with greater vigour, this has led to reduced cooperation and potential gridlock in Congress.
After a cabinet reshuffle, Petro's government was hit by scandal in early June. Chief of Staff Laura Sarabia accused her nanny, Marelbys Meza, of stealing a large sum of cash from a briefcase from her apartment. Meza told the media that she was taken to a basement near the presidential palace in January 2023 and forced to undergo a lie detector test.
The scandal quickly developed into wider chaos: suspected illegal wiretapping, which Petro had previously complained about, a suspected suicide of a security official suspected of being involved in the wiretapping, the swearing-filled audio leaked to Sarabia by Ambassador Armando Benedetti to Sarabia, and Benedetti's (later retracted) allegations of campaign finance violations. Complicating the scandal, Mezza appears to have been at the center of a bitter power struggle between Benedetti and Sarabia. Benedetti was the main power broker for conservatives, allied with Petro during the election. Sarabia worked under Benedetti and later led Petro's campaign. Both Sarabia and Benedetti were removed from office after the attorney general's office announced an investigation into the matter. To make matters worse, Petro had a tense relationship with his justice minister, Francisco Barbosa, who the president accused of opposing his "change" agenda, believing that he was appointed by the previous Conservative government.
Petro faces other legal troubles. There are allegations that his son, Nicolas Petro, may have kept donations to his father's campaign for personal use, some of which allegedly came from a former drug dealer, while the president's younger brother, Juan Fernando Petro, may have received money from the country's drug cartel. Both denied the allegations, but the attorney general's office said it was investigating the matter. If things don't turn around, this development will only add to Petro's buzz and further polarize his supporters and opponents. His supporters see it as part of a conspiracy against the president.
The scandal has hit public confidence, with some recent polls putting Petro with a support rating of about 33 percent and opposition of just over 50 percent. When he was elected, his approval rating was 56 percent. Meanwhile, Petro's reform agenda has stalled. In June, a bill regulating the purchase, sale and distribution of marijuana narrowly failed in the Senate, while a labor reform bill was stalled after members of the lower house of Congress failed to reach a quorum. The fate of the other two reforms — pensions and health care — remains in the balance.
Where will Colombia go from here? MacDonald quoted The Economist as saying that Petro saw himself first and foremost as a left-winger who "believed he was destined to liberate the country from the conservative elite." He is known to be passionate, moody, impulsive, and tends to exacerbate conflicts rather than conciliate after disputes. Petro's political personality could be severely tested. Sluggish economic growth (the International Monetary Fund forecasts real GDP growth of 1.0% in 2023) and high inflation (which is also reflected in food prices) are growing popular discontent. Although it slowed for the third consecutive month, inflation remained high in June by Colombian standards, reaching 12.13%.
But that's not all. "Nannygate" gave Petro a chance to political opponents, who were portrayed as a hypocrite and had a degree of public discontent with growing insecurity in both urban and rural areas. In this case, there is a risk that Petro may divert attention away from party politics and seek to present reforms directly to the people, hoping for their support, thereby forcing Congress to act.
Disillusionment with the democratic process has raised fears that Petro may seek to govern in a more authoritarian and populist way, as El Salvador's president, Nayib Bukele, has done. A growing number of Latin Americans, frustrated by threats to their physical safety and entrenched corruption among political elites, see Bukele's populist approach and hardline stance on law and order as positive. During his time as mayoral and presidential candidate of Bogotá, Petro did advocate populist change, although it remains to be seen whether he will actually take measures to undermine the autonomy of institutions that can constrain his concentration of power.
The polls offered Petro no comfort. According to an Invamer poll published at the end of June, 70% of Colombians believe that their country is on the wrong track, 79% believe that the economy is not in good shape and 74% believe that the corruption rate has increased. That's certainly bad news for Petro, but he's not alone. The dissatisfaction rate in the Colombian Congress is 74%, the Supreme Court 60% and the media 58%. The institution or group considered the least desirable is the National Liberation Army (ELN), with a dissatisfaction rate of 89 per cent.
Despite the challenges facing Petro's government, the political right has been willing to encourage Petro to move further to the left, portraying him as a radical like Venezuela's Chávez and Maduro, who McDonnell believes is responsible for Venezuela's economic collapse and the exodus of 7 million Venezuelans. In addition, the peace process with the ELN remains controversial and has many critics. In October 2023, Colombians will vote in gubernatorial and local elections. By delaying Petro's reforms, spurring him to become more radical, the right can claim him as an incompetent leader and self-proclaimed as a force for law, order and economic growth, with an eye toward the next national election.
McDonald envisioned Colombia's future in the final section. He believes that the state of democracy in Colombia is important for other countries in Latin America and the United States. Not only Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, but much of Central America, Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia are also worrisome. Argentina is in the midst of an economic crisis and could hold controversial elections in October 2023. Mexico's outlook is also deteriorating, with President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador silencing critics, meddling in the country's independent electoral apparatus and expanding the military's role in the economy.
McDonald argued that while the United States desperately needs a constructive relationship with Colombia, political differences between the two countries are evident, especially Petro 's policy toward Venezuela. In April 2023, relations between the two countries deteriorated to a certain extent at a Colombia-hosted meeting in Latin America, Europe and North America, where Petro refused to meet with Venezuelan opposition leaders and continued to call for the lifting of sanctions against Venezuela.
McDonald concluded by writing that Colombia's democracy is under pressure, confidence in key institutions is declining, government policies are in a state of flux, and the country seems to be tired of government change in less than a year. The leader of this country is moody, but so far he has worked hard in democracy, having served as a congressman, senator, mayor of Bogotá and ran for the presidency twice before being successfully elected president in 2022. In addition, Colombia's political stability has previously been challenged by revolutionary movements, populist uprisings such as Bogotazo in 1948, and drug cartels. It has weathered every storm and may hold out again this time, but with the Petro government increasingly troubled, there are considerable downside risks that cannot rule out the possibility of a new round of social unrest.
The far-right wing in the Spanish election
Spanish elections were held on July 23, 2023. On July 20, former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown published an opinion piece titled "Spain voted for whom?" on the World Press Project Syndicate website. He believes the election could pave the way for the formation of the first far-right government after Franco's death, and that the emerging alliance between the conservative Popular Party and the ultra-nationalist, anti-immigrant Vox will fuel ultra-nativist movements across Europe.
Brown wrote that Spain's election on Sunday is about not only the future of the country, but also the future of Europe. If Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, leader of the Spanish Workers' Socialist Party, loses, the far-right Vox could go from street demagogue to parliamentary power, and if Vox and the People's Party form a coalition government, as widely expected, it will mark the end of Spain's longstanding aversion to far-right politicians since Franco's death in 1975.
If Vox becomes part of the Spanish government, its chilling, ultra-nationalist, anti-LGBTQ, anti-feminist, anti-immigrant agenda will push Europe further into the right-wing abyss. Spain's surrender of center-right conservatives to Vox will reverberate across the continent, especially given Spain's recent presidency of the European Council. Spain's center-right conservatives, traditionally rejecting alliances with the far right, are now desperate to return to power.
On July 21, 2023, local time, Madrid, Spain, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez participated in the last campaign rally before the general election.
The alliance between Spain's conservative and far-right parties led to a campaign on the topic of culture wars. Sensational Vox propaganda demonizes immigrants, homosexuals and feminists, portraying Sanchez and his party as enemies of the state. Isabel Diaz Ayuso, president of the People's Party, has labeled her political opponents "communists." To evoke memories of anti-clerical violence before and during Spain's Civil War, she even accused the opposition of wanting to burn down Catholic churches.
In response, Sánchez described the upcoming elections as a battle for survival for the future of Spanish democracy, following the poor performance of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party in local and regional elections in May. In the final days of the campaign, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, former prime minister of the Socialist Party of Workers' Society, increased the stakes, claiming that "the center-right no longer exists" and that only the far-right has abandoned the centrist and that the PP "has disappeared." Ayuso has responded in the same way to attacks like this: "When they call you a fascist, you know you're doing the right thing." ”
In addition to targeting civil rights, the Spanish right-wingers have also set their sights on rejecting regional autonomy. For years, Vox has proposed banning Catalan and Basque nationalist parties, and after years of relative calm under Sanchez, a divided Spain could witness a resurgence of separatist movements.
The right's embrace of the culture wars is a deliberate tactic to mask the threat to living standards and social justice posed by their neoliberal economic policies. The BJP's agenda, taken directly from Reagan-Thatcher's playbook, aims to abolish Spain's current wealth tax, slash personal income taxes, privatize state utilities, and cut social security. When former British Prime Minister Liz Truss tried to implement a similarly outdated agenda in 2022, she almost threw the British economy into trouble.
At the same time, the BJP's focus on the topic of culture wars is aimed at diverting attention from the economic achievements of Sanchez and his coalition government, as well as the green agenda, Brown said. Since taking office in 2018, the Sánchez government has made significant progress in reducing high levels of inequality and poverty in Spain.
In addition, Sanchez successfully brokered an inflation-stabilizing wage deal backed by unions and employers, calling for a 4 percent increase in wages in 2023 and a 3 percent increase in 2024 and 2025. Currently, the country has one of the highest growth rates and lowest inflation rates in the Eurozone.
If re-elected, Sanchez will focus on housing, which he sees as Spain's "great national cause" for the next decade. He also proposed new health care guarantees, including a maximum waiting period of 60 days for specialist outpatient consultations and 15 days for psychotherapy for adolescents and children under 15 years of age.
Spain is far from the only European country threatened by the rise of the far right. Across the continent, far-right parties are growing in popularity, prompting otherwise moderate parties to take extreme positions.
In Germany, the nativist Alternative fur Deutschland is rising in opinion polls, pushing the Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, further to the right. In Finland, the ultra-conservative Finns Party has formed a coalition government with the center-right to force it to pursue hardline anti-immigration policies. Similar patterns can be observed in other Western European countries, from Sweden to Austria, and may be the case in next year's European Parliament elections. Of course, Giorgia Meloni, Italy's prime minister and leader of the Brothers of Italy, is more right-wing than any leader since Benito Mussolini.
The symbiotic relationship that has emerged between far-right movements in Europe is supported by wealthy US allies. In September 2022, representatives of 16 European nativist parties, including Poland's ruling Law and Justice party, populists led by former Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, and the far-right movement led by former Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa, gathered in Miami for the National Conservatism Conference), the keynote speaker was Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican presidential candidate and imitator of Donald Trump.
The Florida meeting bears a striking resemblance to another far-right summit held by the organization in Rome's Plaza in February 2020, just before the pandemic. Participants hope to build a far-right alternative beyond the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, where they support nationalism, tradition and the nuclear family as a bulwark against attempts by "globalists" to destroy European countries and their respective cultures. It was at this rally that Meloni outlined her agenda, which ultimately resonated with Italian voters, that "the defense of national identity and the existence of the nation-state is the only means of defending the sovereignty and freedom of the people".
Ironically, Brown concludes, every member of this unlikely global anti-globalization coalition claims to speak for their country's unique cultural heritage and wants to get rid of international entanglements, while using the same xenophobic rhetoric of "us versus them" (us-versus-them) to stoke nativist fear. 175 years ago, Karl Marx predicted the emergence of ghosts in Europe. Today, however, it is not the specter of communism that Marx hoped, but the specter of populist nationalism. The outcome of Spain's elections may underscore the seriousness and urgency of this threat.