“In these four years we have shown that, if adversity came to us, we would grow as a society: we left a country vaccinateda economy growing up and one social investment that has led to the lowest historical levels of multidimensional poverty.” Iván Duque summed up his tenure as Colombian president with surprising self-indulgence. He had taken over as guarantor of the right continuity in the power. This Sunday he gives the command attributes to the leftist Gustavo Petro and a popularity of 27%. His government was marked by two social outbreaks, in 2019 and 2021. The management, said the portal the empty chairhe concluded “without having managed to win anyone’s heart”.
He assumed the presidency at the age of 42 and became the youngest statesman in the history of Colombia. Duque had some tasks left that the right had not completed, including finishing by burying the peace agreement who had signed Juan Manuel Santos with the FARC. Duque did not succeed in part, as evidenced by the impact caused by the final report of the Truth Commission on the armed conflict of more than half a century. He also did not promote an overarching political agenda. At the end of his administration, he had to witness the disappointment of some of his allies, including the vice president and chancellor, Marta Lucía Ramírez.
From the first year of Government, Duque began to find stones on the road placed by the Democratic Center itself, the game that had sheltered him in the race to the Palacio Nariño. While he did not face adversity in Congress, neither did he make it an instrument of his promised modernization policy. He will be remembered for the efforts he made to stipulate life imprisonment for child rapists in the Penal Code. The Supreme Court annulled that reform last year. His critics point out in these closing hours of a stage without lights that he managed to be more effective in placing his allies, friends and acquaintances in high positions in the State.
open wounds
The outgoing president considers the blows inflicted by the security forces on the Clan del Golfo, the main drug gang, and the FARC groups that did not hand over their weapons and are known as dissidents, to be a success of his government. As for the first, the events of this year seem to refute it: the Clan del Golfo launched an armed strike that showed how its damage capacity is still important.
The Duque era is the object of severe challenge by human rights organizations. The numbers of the Institute of Studies for Development and Peace (Indepaz) speak for themselves: between August 7, 2018 and August 2 of this year 957 social leaders were assassinated. In turn, 261 former guerrillas who signed the peace agreement lost their lives. 313 massacres were reported, with a total of 1,192 victims. Indepaz has also computed 220 cases of forced disappearance; 555 kidnappings, 446 confinements, 545 forced displacements and 29,634 extortions. “The material responsibility for the violent acts is behind the intellectual authorship and the complicit, beneficial or convenient alliance of legal and illegal economic and political agentss,” the report states.
Duke allied himself unconditionally with Donald Trump in the crusade against Nicholas Maduro, perhaps convinced that his fall would be imminent in January 2019, when the deputy Juan Guaidó proclaimed himself “president in charge”. His forecasts were not fulfilled and currently more than two million migrants from the neighboring country live in Colombia.
The pandemic and the economy
The pandemic put all the structures of the State to the test. 140,000 people died from covid-19. Experts believe, however, that the outcome could have been even worse. The lockdown wreaked havoc on the economy. The Government was able to contain part of the crisis with subsidies to companies and the most unprotected social sectors. Duque highlights that the GDP will rise this year by 6.1%. Despite the reactivation, poverty currently affects 36% of the population.
“Duke is the most misunderstood and most unfairly criticized president,” María Paulina Baena, better known as La Pulla, has argued, a kind of political humor youtuber from the newspaper The viewer. She ironically overacts her initial sympathy for “the most bilingual president” of Colombia. The facts, which she lists meticulously, however, make her change her mind. What remains to ponder is little: “he has shown us that he speaks perfect English, he is a very good presenter, excellent scorer and wonderful guitarist“. Duque is convinced that as time goes by his figure will be better valued than in this present of disdain.