Gustavo Petro takes office as president with peace and agrarian, economic and educational reforms as the main challenges
Colombia has woken up this Sunday, August 7, the date on which 202 years ago it took the first step towards its independence, full of optimism, full of enthusiasm and hopeful of living a peaceful future, of enjoying a Colombia in which violence ceases. and prevail dialogue over confrontation. It was another historic day, the inauguration of the first left-wing government led by Gustavo Petro Urrego, the country’s 42nd president, who was elected by 11.3 million Colombians. A day in which Colombia was going to be in the mouth of the world and not because of drug trafficking or because in some rural area they had taken the lives of social leaders. A day in which he would receive the visit of several presidents of other countries and also that of King Felipe VI of Spain. The streets of Bogotá, the capital, woke up adorned with the colors of the Colombian flag. A day to forget the outgoing government and think about the one that has promised the social transformation of the country, in which it has assured that it will seek to unite that Colombia divided in two.
Expectations are high. We will have to see how Gustavo Petro will carry out everything he promised in his electoral campaign in a global world that is focused on the war in Russia and Ukraine, on the threats between China and the United States, and that is witnessing a serious economic and political crisis. after having suffered a pandemic.
It will not be easy for the Petro government to straighten out a country that this week has known that it suffers from the highest inflation in recent years (10.21%), and that has so many internal wars. Questions arise about all the projects and promises made by the new president during his electoral campaign. There are many who want the option that was never voted on to come out well. Petro got the prize he was looking for, which was to lead the country.
The newspaper ‘El Espectador’ in its editorial stated: «The challenge, once the possession is over and the important symbolic moments have occurred, is how to face a country with great problems and deep divisions». And, at the same time, he wondered: “Which Petro will we have as president? The speaker who calls enemies those who oppose him or the moderate statesman he has shown himself to be since the election. For the good of the country, we hope that the second version will be the norm for the next four years. In this way, he will also have the possibility of creating a government that will go down in history at a critical moment for Colombia.”
It is true that nobody believes the farewell speech by Iván Duque, the outgoing president, in which he assured that he had fulfilled the goal of positively transforming Colombia. Words that earned him a monumental row in Congress. But it is no less true that Petro is not a magician who will immediately make rural violence, urban insecurity or corruption disappear or heal the wounds of so many years of armed conflict in the country. “I will not forget the realities of the country,” the president recently said that he has taken office before some 100,000 guests and in an act that parked many protocols and embraced the citizenry more.
While the forces opposed to Petro maintain skepticism in the new Executive, many media outlets recalled the main challenges facing the first left-wing president experienced by Colombian democracy. In his editorial ‘El Tiempo’ he recalled that Petro is also the first president who was part of a guerrilla group, the M-19, which in 1990 handed over its weapons and became a political party. The newspaper affirmed that the national dialogue proposed by Petro since the day of his election “has been a good sign that has helped to generate a scenario of citizen hope around the possibility of a collective construction, in which various sectors with vocation to contribute within a framework of democratic and institutional respect”.
overriding challenges
Total peace is one of the main challenges that Petro has promised, and he wants to achieve it through social and national dialogue in the midst of transformations that, according to Iván Cepeda, president of the Peace Commission in Congress and member of the party Historical Pact, led by Petro, must allow the country to move towards a peaceful and unarmed coexistence. Returning to dialogue with the ELN (National Liberation Army) guerrillas, with whom Duque never negotiated, is another of Petro’s projects. He also has Agrarian Reform ahead of him, suspending the use of glyphosate to eradicate illicit crops, separating the police body from the Ministry of Defense, and other social promises such as free education and providing economic support to the elderly.
Gustavo Petro has dawned the most important day of his political career wishing the citizens, through social networks, that August 7 would be a great party for everyone. At the same time, he has announced the names of the new ministers who will make up his cabinet, currently made up of eight women and six men, in addition to having the first social leader vice president, Francia Márquez Mina, 41 years old next December, who will occupy the Ministry of Equality.
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