The struggle to transform Colombia

A supporter of Gustavo Petro’s government marches in Bogotá on May 1 , 2023. Photo: Daniela Díaz.

Opinion • Diana Granados Soler and Sandra Rátiva Gaona • June 22, 2023 • Leer en castellano

A year ago, Gustavo Petro and Francia Márquez won the elections in Colombia, backed by resounding support from the popular sectors that mobilized during the general strike in 2019 and the social uprising in 2021. Their victory was achieved in alliance with various groups along the country’s democratic and leftist spectrum. 

Petro and Márquez’s government has shown political leadership and a desire to enact social and economic transformation. Their environmental agenda far surpasses the progressive extractivism of Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia and Mexico. 

Minister of Environment Susana Muhamad, and Minister of Mines and Energy Irene Vélez Torres have introduced issues such as degrowth and promoted a societal view of the climate crisis in the government’s domestic and international agendas. 

In concrete terms, the government of Petro and Márquez proposed four reforms they say are necessary to underwrite real change in Colombia: tax reform, health reform, pension reform and labor reform. 

A bill recognizing the rights of the peasantry was also presented and approved, and is sure to become law. The current legislative period ended on June 20. The bill to regulate adult use of cannabis did not pass, and the labor reform was not even tabled.

The final text of the reforms depend on the outcome of political negotiations between the government and the parties. The political coalition that composes Petro and Márquez' Historical Pact is fragile, and several allied parties have changed positions and consolidated themselves as independents or joined the opposition. 

The administration’s intentions to implement public policies through the National Development Plan, to acquire land and comply with the 2016 Peace Agreement, and to transform the oil and gas sector to lead a just energy transition have been hindered by powerful groups of landowners and energy barons.

A left project in a right wing state

"Change is more difficult than we thought it would be,” Petro said during an interview last month.

The Colombian right and the oligarchy have fostered and institutionalized an ultra-conservative and anti-communist discourse in the state, the armed forces, and among in a broad sector of the country's fragile middle classes. This discourse has become reactionary since Petro took office.

On April 26, just nine months into his administration, President Petro removed seven of his ministers, some of whom had publicly contradicted the "transformative" spirit of his reforms. This meant purging the liberal, centrist representatives from within his government. 

Since then, the President's discourse has changed. On May 1st and June 7th, he urged the people to defend the reforms and assured that the government would go as far as the people wanted. 

Petro’s call for support brings up two key issues. 

The first is that Petro and the wing of the government closest to his political project in favor of the popular majority understand that their reforms will not be transformative enough, because in order to be passed they must be negotiated. The correlation of forces in this process is preventing the government from making the changes it wants. 

Second, opposition and blockage of the reforms is growing. It comes not only from within Congress, but also from the business sector and national elites. These sectors have resolutely opposed labor and pension reforms as well as the energy transition, arguing that their interests will be harmed.

Then there’s Colombia's Attorney General Francisco Barbosa, a known ally of right-wing political sectors who has emerged as Petro’s political antagonist. In Colombia, the AG's office is the national investigative body, and is part of the judicial branch. It has total autonomy with respect to the executive branch, and the AG is chosen by Congress from a shortlist of three candidates put forward by the president. Barbosa was nominated by his university friend Iván Duque, the former president of Colombia.

In spite of multiple accusations of corruption and non-compliance, Barbosa has presented himself as a protector of defenseless citizens against the alleged arbitrariness and human rights violations that the "dictator" government is allegedly committing. 

Barbosa represents not only a reactionary and conservative sector of society, but also the possibility of helping to configure what Petro has openly called "a soft coup,” something which cannot be minimized given recent experiences in Brazil and Peru.

The mass media’s powerful narratives are trained on conflict and tension between members of the Historical Pact coalition, which are portrayed as unprecedented crises.

The media system also exacerbates a sense of chaos and insecurity due to what it perceives as the "lack of an iron fist” on the part of Defense Minister Iván Velásquez. 

In addition, right-wing political groups including the Democratic Center party have promoted racist messages that portray Vice President Francia Márquez as incapable, ill-tempered, arrogant, and as someone who misspends public funds. These narratives point to the profound racism that runs through Colombian society.

The limits of the state

The Colombian state was designed by and built for the interests of the powerful. Today it is under the 1991 Constitution, which is internationally recognized for its progressive character, but which is stuck in an institutional framework full of corrupt—or at best, indolent—public officials indifferent to the needs of an impoverished, war-ridden, deeply unequal and discriminatory country. 

This is perhaps—together with the war—the greatest challenge of this government, which took office infused with the joy of its supporters, but is now confirming known tendencies of Latin American progressivism: “winning” elections is not enough. 

The administration of the state costs political projects and social and popular organizations dearly, as they delegate their most capable representatives to take public office. This weakens the capacity for organization and mobilization, and empties entire regions of their leadership, all while paramilitarism and the right grow stronger.

The war is ongoing in Colombia. Increasingly, it is fed by international dynamics that not only put pressure on the drug market, but also on illegal markets such as gold, arms or and even upon those caught in the context of a planetary migratory crisis. 

The dynamics of the war in Colombia have expanded in regions including Cauca, Chocó, Catatumbo, Caquetá and Arauca, and threaten to amplify their scope. 

Despite the weariness brought on by decades of war, it is essential to continue defending and producing the conditions for a negotiated settlement to the armed conflict with the insurgency. This requires clearly differentiating the belligerent roots of the guerrillas from the transnational corporations that move the armies of organized crime. The popular sector cannot renounce the right to disobedience.

In addition to the difficult field of institutional politics and the push to transform the State, social, cultural and territorial disputes—historically led by people from popular sectors—including for the construction of food sovereignty, the fulfillment of the rights of Indigenous and Black and rural peoples, quality, public higher education, and the struggle for a life free of macho and patriarchal violence, continue.

It is popular organization that has defended life in the face of paramilitary massacres, that has built movements and political agendas from the ground up, that promoted and supported peace agreements as a negotiated exit to the armed conflict, and that has resisted neoliberalism and extractivism. 

Against all odds, the people have managed to build alternatives, local economies, grassroots organizations and networks for life. We must sustain our efforts to be able to continue to recognize and strengthen the autonomy of organizations and peoples. 

As the right wing and armed reactionaries gain strength, it is community organizations and plebeian politics—known for three-day assemblies and huge communal meals—that do not work through the State, that will allow us to continue existing, resisting the war imposed on us by capitalism and which will continue to develop new economies, territorialities and ways of disputing the future of the country.