In 2018, Gustavo Petro was never a favorite during the Colombian presidential campaign. Considered too left for the country at the time, he narrowly reached the second round against Iván Duque, on the right, who had won with 12 points in advance.
In 2022, the big question is whether Gustavo Petro – and Colombia itself – has changed enough for the outcome of the ballot to be different.
Colombia is indeed different. In four years in office, Iván Duque’s popularity rating has dropped from around 55% to 20%. Recurrent and sometimes violent demonstrations [au printemps 2021]sparked by his tax reform, have been exacerbated by an intractable and sometimes deadly police crackdown.
The job market, hard hit during the Covid-19 pandemic, has only partially recovered, and the unemployment rate remained above 12% in February 2022. According to the Invamer polling institute, 85% of Colombians now think their country is not on the right track.
“Completely disappointed expectations”
Juan Gabriel Gómez, professor at the National University of Bogota, explains:
“The socio-economic situation is much more complex. [En 2018,] the Colombians thought they were making a fresh start, having a chance to solve old problems… But today, in 2022, those expectations have been completely disappointed.”
It is all the more complex to determine if Petro has changed, and how. The 62-year-old senator, mayor of Bogota from 2012 to 2015, seems to want to reassure those who fear that he is somewhat authoritarian by softening certain points in his program.
In 2021, he said Colombia needed “democracy and peace” not a socialist regime. He completely renounced a proposal raised during the previous campaign, namely the organization of a constitutional referendum. As in 2018, he signed a commitment not to expropriate “nothing and nobody”.
“Political opportunism”?
Gustavo Petro is also much more determined to create alliances with the traditional parties than four years ago.
Juan Gabriel Gómez clarifies:
“He opened his door to traditional figures who had almost no access to public resources during Duque’s tenure. It all sounds a lot like political opportunism. If these officials had come up with a better proposition, this is the one they would have chosen.”
With the approach of the first round, scheduled for this Sunday, May 29, it is however clear that Gustavo Petro remains true to himself: a man accustomed to personal spades against his political adversaries and against the press, and a man who seems to improvise his major public policies.
In March, Petro called “neo-Nazi” on Twitter a columnist who criticized his program on pensions.
In 2020, he said he would encourage civil disobedience, including the refusal to fund public services, as he judged Duque’s government “illegitimate”. Not long ago, he mentioned the need to grant a “social grace” generalized after revelations about his brother who had visited in prison a former mayor and deputy, guilty of corruption.
Petro then clarified that he was not advocating the pardon of criminals, whether white-collar or not, but polls suggest that this episode could do him a disservice at the polls.
Raise taxes on the wealthy
It’s all a matter of context. Colombia has never elected a left-wing president and, because of its armed conflicts with Marxist guerrillas [Farc, ELN…], many voters are wary of the major transformations promised by left-wing political figures. Some of Petro’s ideas and the way he presents them lead some to doubt his commitment to political and legal norms.
Petro says it would suspend current hydraulic fracturing pilot projects and new oil exploration, when oil accounts for about half of Colombia’s exports.
He wants to raise taxes on the country’s 4,000 richest people and reallocate private pension funds to a public system, which critics say would amount to the expropriation of private fortunes.
food emergency
Petro said his first step as president would be to declare a state of emergency to address hunger in the country. Nearly 16 million people in Colombia live on two or fewer meals a day. Petro clarified in an interview that the state of emergency would relate only to food security and would be overseen by both Congress and the judiciary.
Given Petro’s temperament and background, including his former membership in the April 19 Movement guerrillas, known as M-19 [démobilisée en 1990]his remarks have reignited fears that he will circumvent traditional legal safeguards if he doesn’t get his way.
“Petro has lost none of his arrogance. He is convinced that he has an answer to everything”, summarizes Juan Gabriel Gómez.
Miguel Silva, founder of Colombian consultancy Galileo 6, says:
“He’s not a radical thinker and he’s not a radical reformer. Rather, he is an incompetent populist. When he was mayor of Bogota, he didn’t really know how to implement big changes.”
Even so, after two consecutive presidential campaigns, Petro – who currently collects between 38% and 40% of the voting intentions in the first round – has never been better placed to reach the presidency. Colombians are exasperated with the status quo, and for many, Petro speaks aptly of the ills besetting their country.
Moreover, its main opponents are also facing difficulties. Former Mayor of Medellín Sergio Fajardo [centriste] did poorly in the primaries on March 13 and now has less than 10% of voting intentions.
Another former mayor of Medellín, right-wing Federico Gutiérrez, currently has voting intentions close to those of Petro, according to the hypothetical scenario of a second round between the two men, but Gutiérrez is associated in the minds with the very unpopular government by Ivan Duque.
“His rival is his unpopularity”
At a time when so many voters are looking for change, Petro’s promises could spark enough interest for him to turn the trial around.
Mauricio Reina, political commentator and researcher at the Fedesarrollo think tank, says:
“Petro is not defeated, but he is not victorious either. Everything is still possible. His rival, for now, is mostly his unpopularity, rather than any other candidate in particular.”