Bogotá, Aug 6 (EFE).- In the two years remaining in his government, Colombian President Gustavo Petro will attempt to achieve the national agreement that he failed to achieve in the first half of his term in order to make the social changes that won over the electorate, a challenge for the president given the country’s political climate and his loss of popularity.
In his speech at the opening of the new session of Congress on July 20, Petro proposed a “political pact (…) so that we can agree on reforms” and asked Congress to commit to “the task of agreeing on changes, not on anti-changes.”
“President Petro’s main challenge is to achieve governability and that is achieved through consensus,” Manuel Camilo González, professor of International Relations at the Universidad Javeriana, told EFE.
These conditions are needed to advance reforms that were not approved in the previous legislature, such as those in health, labor, public services and education, pillars of what could be his political legacy.
To achieve his goals, the president will have to seek agreements in a Congress in which he does not have a majority and which, in the case of the Senate, is presided over by the opposition member Efraín Cepeda, while the reins of the House of Representatives are held by Jaime Salamanca, who was elected with Petro’s support.
Low popularity
Petro, the first leftist leader in Colombia, reaches the halfway point of his mandate on August 7 with his popularity eroded and his approval rating of 34.6%, according to a survey by Invamer for Blu Radio and Caracol Television released last Friday.
The same survey indicates that two years after coming to power, only 29.4% of those surveyed believe that the country is “on the right track.”
This is due to various factors, such as the poor execution of his Government and the consequent lack of results, the deterioration of public order in various parts of the country and the corruption problems involving members of his Government, as in the case of the National Unit for Disaster Risk Management (UNGRD).
For Carlos Enrique Moreno, professor at the Faculty of Political Science and International Relations at the Universidad Javeriana, Petro’s political situation will make the process of the Executive’s projects in Congress more tortuous.
“We are in the second part of Petro’s government and the president’s popularity is not very good, a large part of Congress is going to start being much more critical of the bills,” says Moreno.
In this regard, the expert adds, Congress will be more demanding “not only because of the corruption cases, but because these politicians who are in Congress will begin to think about how they will be seen in the following year, if they will be related (by the electorate) with people who support the current Government or if they differ and are critical of the Government.”
In the last legislative session, after overcoming many obstacles, the Government managed to approve 20 bills, and another 15 are still pending debate in Congress.
The government’s main victory was the approval of the pension reform, but it failed with the health and education reforms, while the labor reform will continue its legislative process.
He also achieved approval of the Statutory Law on Agrarian Jurisdiction, which will deal with resolving rural conflicts, the origin of violence in Colombia, and the increase of the public debt limit by 17.607 billion dollars, necessary to meet debt obligations.
The shadow of re-election
In the new legislature, according to González, the president will surely continue negotiating individual support in the House of Representatives, but in the Senate it will be more complicated because the upper house is presided over by an opposition member “who is the one who will set the agenda of the most important issues to be discussed.”
The political climate will also determine whether the president goes ahead with the idea of calling a constituent assembly to make more profound changes in the country, or whether the idea of presidential re-election, encouraged by his supporters, is revived.
Senator Isabel Zuleta, from the Historic Pact, a coalition that supports Petro, said this week that the legislative bill to revive reelection is ready.
In response to this announcement, the Senate president warned: “I don’t see any room for a presidential re-election. We must focus on issues that interest the country and do not polarize.”
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2024-08-10 00:05:31
