While Gustavo Petro waited for Simón Bolívar’s sword to give his inaugural speech —already with the presidential sash on his torso—, he sat down to watch the audience in silence. In those ten minutes he spoke little, perhaps meditating on the phrase he would say later: “Arriving here undoubtedly implies going through a lifetime.” His life, as he said in his book, is many.
The Plaza de Bolívar was completely full. From the statue of the liberator to the Casa de Nariño, with politicians, diplomats and special guests; the other piece was occupied by the indigenous, afro and peasant communities, who for the first time are really approaching the Executive power.
In his speeches, Petro has named himself the son of the people, which is not another way of those that his life represents those many lives, that he is an archetype of those who are now going to govern. Perhaps that is why he silently repaired both the congressmen who were chatting spontaneously, and the public, where someone was holding a painting that showed him hugging Vice President Francia Márquez.
He exchanged few comments with the presidents of the Senate and the House of Representatives, Roy Barreras and David Racero, who were sitting next to him, while the pianist Teresita Gómez —one of the greatest Colombian performers— played the piano with subtle mastery under the sun. in the Bogota followingnoon.
Petro ordered what his predecessor Iván Duque did not want: to take the weapon out of the Casa de Nariño’s shelter to exhibit it before —give it to— the people. That was his first government mandate. The piece arrived in the glass case that preserves it, in the arms of soldiers of the Presidential Guard.
Bolívar, the sword and the robbery
The president is a politician of symbolism and with the sword on his right side he outlined the 21 pages of his inauguration speech, the royal investiture following the two spiritual ones he held in Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and in Parque Tercer Milenio.
In this, the president of the Senate, Barreras, took his oath so that the senator of the Historical Pact, María José Pizarro, would dress him with the presidential sash while she left before the attendees another emblem: the portrait of his father on his back embroidered by weavers of peace (see box).
The president cried twice. At the beginning of his speech, when he said that getting to that lectern was the journey of a lifetime and that the sword next to him did symbolize him, since the guerrilla in which he was a member before entering political life, the M- 19, he stole it in 1974 and he himself was in charge of returning it in 1991, when they were already demobilized.
He greeted the former presidents who were present (César Gaviria, Ernesto Samper and Juan Manuel Santos) and those who were not (Andrés Pastrana and Álvaro Uribe), a gesture that drew laughter for the setback that Pastrana and Uribe made to their investiture. The latter had promised to call him, but until the closing of this edition, his silence was the only message he allowed to be seen in public.
Already at his lectern, Petro promised to fully comply with the Peace Agreement with the FARC and follow the recommendations of the Truth Commission, implement a production economy in search of wealth for all, he moderated his speech by inviting the rich to pay taxes with pride and made ten promises for his term.
He proclaimed that “Colombia is not just Bogotá” and won applause. When he spoke regarding the Armed Forces, the communities shouted in discontent.
Tears returned at the close with the promise of uniting Colombia and with the story of the Arhuaca girl who, in her possession of yesteryear in Santa Marta, spoke to her regarding forgiveness. He finished his intervention with a broken voice and before the penetrating gaze of his wife, Verónica Alcocer.
She, in those 49 minutes of commitments once morest the country, stared at him two meters away from her. She was only distracted for a few seconds to appreciate the audience’s reaction to the strongest moments of her intervention, to focus once more on her husband on stage.
There were moments of applause. His promises of peace, gender equality, and an economy without coal and oil drew applause. Even in the audience a woman shouted “Petro, I love you” as if the politician, more than a president, were a rock star. Despite the jubilation, there were also taunts like the ones that were heard every time they called King Felipe of Spain or the president of Ecuador, Guillermo Lasso.
petrist diplomacy
To them the communities at the back of the square and the special guests sitting in the middle shouted harangues at them. Hearing the last name Lasso was the prelude to a collective “uhhh” and someone greeting the King aroused a similar reaction.
The Spanish monarch maintained a diplomatic silence. She frowned at him and few words passed with the presidents and delegates who were sitting next to him. One of them, the Chilean president, Gabriel Boric, whom the public acclaimed vehemently when he entered the scene and the many times that Petro or Barreras mentioned him. Quite a paradox because the one who is celebrated in Colombia in Chile is protested.
Boric’s partner Irina Karamanos organized his hair from time to time, the rebellious strand that covered his forehead ran to the right side and she ended up in the middle of his conversation with his counterpart Lasso, the only president of the South American right who attended the meeting.
When the Ecuadorian entered the scene, the people shouted over and over once more the name of his political adversary: ”Correa, Correa, Correa.”
Before his peers, Petro spoke of Latin Americanism, the same that more than five decades ago the presidents of the wave of the South American left –Hugo Chávez, Cristian Fernández and Rafael Correa– tried to put on the agenda.
In the portrait of this new progressivism were Alberto Fernández from Argentina, celebrated amid applause despite the fact that in his land the people claim the inflation that cannot find a ceiling, and Xiomara Castro de Zeleya from Honduras. The other lefts with which the executive will delineate this new era.
On the other side of the platform, the former presidents took their seats. Gaviria was the first to arrive, leaning on a cane with his right hand, until he sat alone for almost an hour. Moreover, the liberal who handed over the flags of that party to the Historical Pact was the only former president who was in his seat at the time Petro entered.
Samper and Santos came almost on time and during the break they separated from the people to talk. In that same area of cloud-colored chairs, the family of Francia Márquez witnessed the investiture. They were on a podium of white and middle-country men who were in power, marking the contrast of a black family, region and social struggles that hardly comes close to this.
The first person to congratulate the president following his inauguration was former senator Armando Benedetti. He was even the first to greet Roy Barreras with a hug and a squeeze on the shoulders. The two of them, far from being emblems of change, embody the politicians who have been in power for decades and who ended up in the Petro team.
The military and silence
From Plaza Bolívar, the president left for his new home, Nariño, escorted by the commanders of the Army, Navy, and Air Force. He made a minute of silence in honor of the soldiers who died in the conflict and those seconds of inflection served to show himself as an Executive who can be an ally of the military, despite his harshness with them.
In the back gardens of the Casa de Nariño, the new presidential family marched together towards the gate where Iván Duque, his wife María Juliana and their two daughters were waiting. The military trumpets were barely heard among the cries of “Duke out” that came from the Plaza. A former president left, a new tenant entered and the communities celebrated.
Next to the statue of Bolívar were the allegories to the butterflies of magic realism in yellow, blue and red colors that the president used as an effigy of his promise of change. They ended up photographed, too, in the umbrellas distributed by the logistics when the sky turned gray threatening a rain similar to the one that received Duque four years earlier in his transmission of command.
The 32 Antioquian chairs with the names of the departments were exhibited on the platform that took Petro to his oval ascent, without the extensive red rug that his predecessors used and that he exchanged for the batons of the indigenous and peasant guards who traced their own street of honor
After the emblems of the people, the reality of the man in a suit arrived: finish composing his cabinet, sign the decree of possession of the ministers, give one more speech before his team and sit down with other powerful people for bilateral meetings that occupy his Monday agenda . Day one of the government that he promised will be one of change and that he will have to maneuver so that the expectations of renewal do not turn out to be a boomerang.
