BOGOTA, Colombia — Colombian President Gustavo Petro took workplace a yr in the past laying out bold targets for the nation’s first leftist authorities.
He stated his agenda would supply Colombians with a “second alternative” to finish many years of inner violence, and he promised that his “authorities of change” would deal with longstanding inequalities by growing authorities spending and reforming the well being system and labor legal guidelines.
But, whereas celebrating his first yr in workplace Monday, Petro is dealing with rising doubts about his skill to satisfy his guarantees within the the rest of his four-year time period.
The president’s approval score has plunged 20 factors, leaving simply over a 3rd of Colombians expressing satisfaction along with his efficiency. Preventing amongst insurgent teams and drug traffickers persists in rural areas, and his social and financial reforms are stalled within the fractured congress.
A marketing campaign finance scandal involving Petro’s eldest son, which broke out earlier this summer season, has additional weakened the federal government, with some analysts saying Petro’s capability to alter Colombia’s legal guidelines has been severely wounded.
“I feel its secure to say that he’s more likely to turn out to be a lame duck president,” stated Will Freeman, a Colombia knowledgeable on the Council on International Relations. “He’s moved on to a section of his presidency the place he’ll probably focus extra on symbolic gestures and on points he can management unilaterally, as an alternative of huge legislative reforms.”
Petro’s political prospects appeared far totally different a yr in the past, when tens of hundreds of individuals confirmed up at his inauguration speech at Bogota’s iconic Bolivar sq.. He started his time period with a 56% approval score, in response to a ballot performed by Invamer.
Nonetheless, Petro’s Historic Pact occasion held lower than 1 / 4 of thel seats in congress, and he needed to cobble collectively a coalition that included conventional events within the heart and on the fitting that have been granted Cupboard positions in return for backing his proposed reforms.
The grouping rapidly pushed by a tax overhaul that raised authorities revenues by $4 billiion. And it accepted a authorized framework for Petro’s authorities to barter the disarmament of insurgent teams just like the Gulf Clan and the Nationwide Liberation Military, whose energy has grown in some elements of Colombia since FARC guerrillas disarmed in 2016 in the course of the administration of centrist President Juan Manuel Santos.
However the coalition started to disintegrate early this yr as variations started to emerge over Petro’s proposal to overtake the well being system by placing a authorities company in command of all insurance coverage funds. Presently, non-public corporations insure thousands and thousands of Colombians and handle funds to hospitals.
Events on the middle and the fitting slowly started to desert Petro’s coalition, and so they knocked down labor legislation laws that may have restricted the flexibility of corporations to rent employees on short-term contracts. In July, events against the Petro authorities denied the federal government its selection for president of the Senate.
Petro’s well being system proposal and a laws to alter Colombia’s pension system have been accepted by Senate committees, however the likelihood of them passing your complete Senate now appears distant, stated Sergio Guzman, a political analyst in Bogota.
“If the federal government desires to get any of its laws accepted they must make concessions” Guzman stated. “The federal government will lose these reforms in the event that they fail to know that they’re now not politically viable.”
Guzman added that the scandal involving Petro’s eldest son, Nicolas Petro, offers the opposition additional leverage in disputes over laws as a result of lawmakers can threaten the president with a congressional inquiry.
Petro’s son, who can also be a politician, is underneath investigation for alleged cash laundering and illicit enrichment and final week agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in a probe that’s now additionally how the president’s 2022 marketing campaign was financed.
Throughout a latest listening to, the youthful Petro stated he took tens of hundreds of {dollars} from a convicted drug trafficker on Colombia’s Caribbean coast and funelled a number of the cash into his father’s presidential marketing campaign.
Nicolas Petro stated his father had no data of the supply of these donations. However prosecutors say they’re wanting into whether or not funds from different illicit sources may need entered the marketing campaign — and whether or not the president knew concerning the donations.
Petro has denied any wrongdoing and stated he wouldn’t intrude along with his son’s investigation.
On Monday, he marked his first yr in workplace with a one-hour speech on the website of a historic battlefield the place Colombia secured its independence from Spain within the nineteenth century.
Petro celebrated the beginning of a six-month truce with the Natinal Liberation Military, Colombia’s largest remaining insurgent group, saying that it’s going to save lives and facilitate negotiations with the insurgent group.
He stated that his authorities will current an training reform to congress that seeks to make sure free tuition at public universities and that he’ll proceed to press congress to go his well being and labor legislation measures.
“Change will strengthen us, not weaken us,” Petro stated. “It’ll put us on a street to improvement, that leaves no one behind.”