Colombian Politics Digest III: The realities of power

President Gustavo Petro has been in office for over a month. After the initial exultation, the new administration is beginning to face reality.

In political terms, the new administration is still in its honeymoon. Its congressional coalition is huge, and seems reliable for now. Petro’s approval ratings remain quite high. In the regular Invamer-Gallup poll from the last week of August he has a 56% approval rating and 20% disapprovals, the highest presidential approval rating in a decade. In a CNC poll for Semana, he has 69% favourability and 20% unfavourability. The popular mood remains cautiously optimistic towards the new government and he gets high marks for most of his first moves. The controversies (see below) don’t seem to be having much of an impact on public opinion and remain confined to the media elite bubble.

In this edition: Coalition politics, the first controversies and scandals, the government’s realpolitik, Petro’s ‘total peace’, the rebranded riot police, gas prices and a controversial vote in the OAS on Nicaragua.

Don’t miss: my analysis of Petro’s 2022 tax reform proposal

Coalition politics

As I have discussed before, under the 2018 opposition statute, parties must declare themselves in opposition, in government or independent within a month of the new president taking office. They can then change their official declaration only once within the government’s term.

As anticipated, Petro starts off with a two-thirds majorities in both houses of Congress. His congressional aplanadora (steamroller) includes the Pacto Histórico, the Greens, the ASI, the Comunes (ex-FARC), the Liberals, the Conservatives and the Partido de la U. Petro has put together the left and centre-left with the traditional parties (the Liberals, Conservatives and La U) that have almost always been in government, regardless of shifting ideologies.

Together, the government coalition has 77 seats in the Senate (71.3%) and at least 127 seats (68%) in the House (plus a good chunk of the 16 victims’ representatives). The sheer strength of this mega-coalition is comparable to Juan Manuel Santos’ Unidad Nacional, which had supermajorities in Congress for much of Santos’ two terms (2010–2018).

Much like Santos’ coalitions, however, Petro’s coalition appears to be built on traditional exchange of favours and bureaucratic transactions rather than ideological coherence. Furthermore, nothing guarantees the long-term future of this coalition: like Santos’ coalition began to evaporate in the final 18 months of his presidency, Petro’s coalition in Congress could begin to evaporate and disintegrate over time.

Putting together the coalition with the three traditional parties was not easy. None of them had supported him in the election: all three had, in majority, supported right-wing candidate Fico Gutiérrez in the first round (the Conservatives and La U being formally part of Fico’s coalition). Petro’s relations with Liberal leader César Gaviria were strained. However, all three of these parties have almost always been in government, and their congressmen have always wanted to be on the government’s side to benefit from its largesse. The Partido de la U, born in 2005, has never been in opposition and went from being the uribista party par excellence to Santos’ party during the peace process and back to supporting Duque’s uribista government. The Conservatives have not been fully in opposition since the late 1980s. The Liberals have been in opposition in the past (to Uribe’s administrations for example) although it has always been a rather traumatic experience for a party that has been used to be in power for much of its modern history. These parties’ support for governments doesn’t come from the goodness of their hearts — they want things in exchange, like bureaucratic appointments (the infamous ‘quotas’) or access to government money (Santos’ infamous marmalade).

Petro was initially reluctant to give ‘quotas’ to anyone, but ultimately gave in, somewhat. As discussed, the justice and housing ministries were given to people close to César Gaviria and the Liberals. The U received the ICT ministry: after the initial appointment of Mery Gutiérrez fell through, the final appointee, Sandra Urrutia, was suggested by the U’s leader, Dilian Francisca Toro. The party also got other appointments, like former senator Roosvelt Rodríguez as superintendent of notaries and registries. The Conservatives, probably the most pampered of the three, got the transportation ministry (with the controversial and inexperienced Guillermo Reyes), including the two vice-ministers.

However, in the days before the parties needed to make official their decision, the Liberals and the U upped the ante by publicly threatening to leave the coalition before it was even put together. After a caucus meeting, César Gaviria said that the Liberals were “not satisfied” and demanded that the government keep its commitments to them. Liberal congressmen feel that the housing and justice ministers do not really ‘represent’ them and that they are not getting appointments to second-level positions. The U was also annoyed by the time it took to finalize the appointment of the ICT minister after Mery Gutiérrez’s appointment could not go through.

As La Silla Vacía reported, the Liberals needed a meeting with finance minister José Antonio Ocampo (who served in Liberal cabinets in the 1990s) to discuss the tax reform proposal to be satisfied, feeling that the government was listening to them and taking their concerns seriously. The Partido de la U got the appointment of Sandra Urrutia as ICT minister, on September 5, who was brought to a caucus meeting by Toro, introducing her as the party’s quota in cabinet. The Conservatives, led by Petro’s new top ally, senator Carlos Trujillo, didn’t get cold feet although Conservative voices outside the caucus and leadership, like former presidential pre-candidate David Barguil, wanted the party to declare itself independent in the name of ideological coherence. However, a lot of (most?) Conservative members at the base are unhappy with the decision: a Conservative councillor in Cali said that those who made the decision are “ideological prostitutes.”

Cambio Radical (CR), the Nuevo Liberalismo, the Christian right MIRA and Colombia Justa Libres (CJL) and former senator Jorge Enrique Robledo’s Dignidad have declared themselves independent. CR, with its 11 senators and 19 representatives, was internally divided. Some senators, like David Luna and Carlos Fernando Motoa, wanted to be in opposition. The party’s natural boss, former Vice President Germán Vargas Lleras, was also pushing the party to be in opposition. However, most of CR’s congressmen, including the charistas from the Caribbean, didn’t want to be in opposition: some because they don’t want to resemble the uribistas, others argued that it is important to keep relations with the government (being in opposition means no chance of bureaucratic appointments, not being received by ministers and not having your initiatives taken into account). Essentially, CR’s bureaucratic appetite won the day, thanks to the pressure of congressmen elected by traditional machines which need access to government money and bureaucracy.

This leaves very few parties formally in opposition — practically only the uribista Centro Democrático (CD), which is the strongest opposition party with 13 senators and 15 representatives, and Rodolfo Hernández and his Liga (already wracked by internal divisions). Rodolfo has a seat in the Senate, by virtue of his second place finish in the election, but he has no real interest in legislative politics and could soon resign his seat to run for governor of Santander in 2023.

You can see the list of party declarations under the opposition statute here.

Controversies, scandals and tensions

Inevitably, any new government is soon hit by controversies, scandals, gaffes and blunders. The new government and Petro’s coalition, the Pacto Histórico, have been hit by several (small) controversies, blunders and scandals. Some may have been blown out of proportion by hostile media and a mediocre commentariat thirsty for gossip and scandal after a heated campaign, though some are more serious.

In the cabinet, the new mines and energy minister Irene Vélez has accumulated controversies and blunders. She was already viewed with suspicion by the media and the energy sector because of her background and inexperience on mining and energy issues (she is an academic with a background in philosophy and political geography) and her hostility to extractivism. In September, during the annual national mining congress, Vélez voiced support for degrowth theory, saying that other countries should begin to “de-grow”. She mocked and attacked for talking about degrowth (even though it is a valid theory), while others pointed out that Colombia is not in a position to demand that other economies reduce their economic growth. Petro came out in her defence, tweeting that he learned about Serge Latouche’s degrowth theory when he studied in Belgium in the 1990s. The energy ministry later ‘clarified’ that Vélez referred to the need to treat climate change as a global problem which requires the commitment of society as a whole.

That same day, after the conference, Vélez abruptly ended a press conference and walked out without answering journalists’ questions. Vélez was visibly annoyed by the somewhat disorderly press conference and journalists’ insistence (asking them to let her speak before ending it all by saying “this ends here”). Vélez later apologized, saying that she could have done it better and that she hoped to keep learning. However, she was widely criticized by journalists and commentators for her disrespectful attitude towards the media.

On September 11, Vélez made another mistake, saying that the annual deficit of the Fondo de Estabilización de Precio de los Combustibles (the fund used to subsidize fuel prices) was 10,000 trillion pesos when in reality it is 40 trillion pesos — as Petro clarified. Once again, Vélez was widely criticized, including by friendly voices, like Green party co-president Antonio Navarro Wolff. Vélez later corrected herself.

Most recently, on September 12, while speaking before Congress, Vélez was told that she could not read from her paper — as that’s against congressional rules (Law 5, or ley quinta). She said that she didn’t know (certainly her staff could have told the rules beforehand).

Journalists and the hostile media (notably Semana) miss no opportunity to highlight her latest blunders, now making lists of them. Opposition politicians and some commentators are calling her incompetent, and calling on her to resign. Even Petristas are getting a bit uncomfortable and antsy with her: the president of the House, David Racero, asked her to “speed up her learning process” while saying that he trusts her capabilities.

However, Gustavo Petro is vehemently defending her. On Twitter, he went after her critics, saying that by mocking her and trying to destroy a “capable and honest minister, who does not agree with the cooptation of the ministry by private interests”, they are hiding big information that the public have the right to know. He compared the situation she faces to what he dealt with while he was mayor of Bogotá during the trash crisis.

Meanwhile, in Congress, the new ruling coalition’s embarrassment is Pacto senator Alex Flórez. Flórez, 31, is a close ally of Medellín mayor Daniel Quintero (he was elected to Medellín city council with Quintero’s movement Independientes in 2019) who was eleventh on the Pacto’s closed list for Senate in March. In the early morning hours of September 2, outside a hotel in Cartagena, a visibly drunk Flórez insulted police officers (yelling ‘assassin’) while resisting a bodyguard’s efforts to escort him away from the scene. The hotel had called the police because Flórez was trying to enter the hotel with a young woman who didn’t have her ID. That young woman later told Noticias RCN that she is an escort and an adult.

A few hours after the incident, Flórez said that thing had gotten out of hand a bit but that he never disrespected anyone. He later apologized through a statement on social media. His colleagues in the Pacto Histórico took their distances: senator Gustavo Bolívar said that the behaviour of public servants must be exemplary and that he doesn’t represent them, while the president of the House David Racero said that the Pacto came to set an example, not shame. Bolívar and Racero both asked the coalition’s ethics commission to investigate the incident — but they’ll need to actually set up that body in the first place. Only his mentor, Daniel Quintero, backed him — while saying that what happened was disappointing and should not happen again, he tweeted “those who expect me to leave Alex alone now don’t know me. Fuerza Alex. #CreoEnAlex”. The incident is under investigation by the Procuraduría.

However, on September 4, Flórez changed the situation in his favour. In a Twitter video, he admitted that he has an alcohol problem and that he had hit rock bottom. He later went to the police station in Bocagrande to apologize to the police officers he had insulted. Alcohol is everywhere in Colombian politics, but it still remains extremely rare for Colombian politicians to open up about their struggles with substance abuse or addiction. For coming clean about his own personal struggles, Flórez received messages of support and encouragement from most of his allies: Bolívar praised his gallantry, Racero said it was a “great gesture of humility” and Quintero said that he’ll get through it. Flórez then got a psychiatrist’s note to receive 15 days of sick leave from Congress.

Flórez, however, is no stranger to scandal. In March, during the campaign, he elbowed fellow Pacto candidate (now representative) Susana Boreal on stage during a campaign event because he wanted to be next to Petro (and felt she was upstaging him). Flórez also has past accusations of domestic violence (allegedly hitting his ex for refusing to get an abortion). While he was a city councillor in Medellín, Flórez got in two car crashes with the official car provided by the council. From his time in Medellín, Flórez is also accused of giving no-show jobs to ex-girlfriends, living in the house of somebody accused of corruption and forcing contractors with the municipality to raise funds for his candidacy or ‘give’ part of their salary. Feminists in the Pacto had already asked Flórez to step aside back in March, before he was even elected, and some have now called on him to resign from Congress after the recent incident — including Polo representative Luz María Munera.

The feminists in the Pacto were also quite unhappy with the recent appointment of Cielo Rusinque as the new director of the Department of Social Propserity (DPS). The DPS is the agency which administers the government’s different social programs including the Ingreso Solidario (basic income for the poor created during the pandemic), Familias en Acción, Jóvenes en Acción and Colombia Mayor — which makes it a powerful agency (with a big budget) sought after by politicians. Rusinque, a lawyer, is a petrista loyalist and has no experience in social programs. She is disliked by the Pacto’s feminists because she has defended two prominent members of the Pacto who have faced accusations of sexual violence: Fabián Sanabria (a professor formally accused of rape) and Hollman Morris (2019 mayoral candidate in Bogotá accused of domestic violence and sexual harassment). Rusinque’s appointment was very poorly received by feminist activists, most notably by Ángela María Robledo, Petro’s 2018 running mate.

Moreover, Vice President Francia Márquez and her group had been angling for the DPS. It was their understanding that the DPS would be absorbed in the future Ministry of Equality promised to Francia, although Petro has since clarified that the DPS will not become part of the future ministry. The bill to create the future equality ministry has yet to be presented to Congress, always ‘postponed’ as it seems held up in negotiations between the presidency and the vice president’s group. Francia Márquez ‘losing’ the battle for control of the DPS has fueled the media speculation of a rift between Petro and her.

Realpolitik: The new comptroller and CNE

As discussed at length in my previous politics digest, Congress elected the new Comptroller General on August 18.

The election of the new comptroller — the person in charge of supervising the management of public resources — turned into a long telenovela, with all the confusing plot lines, betrayals and unexpected twists and turns. I explain the full story in detail in my previous post, so I won’t repeat it here.

In the final days before the vote on August 18, a dark horse candidate, former auditor general Carlos Hernán Rodríguez emerged as the late favourite thanks to the blessing of the ruling Pacto Histórico. The hitherto favourite had been María Fernanda Rangel, widely perceived as the ‘candidate’ of outgoing comptroller general Carlos Felipe ‘Pipe’ Córdoba. By early August, Rangel had received the support of the Liberals, the Conservatives, Cambio Radical (CR) and the Partido de la U. Petrismo and the left, however, disliked her. The new government was taken aback by the four traditional parties’ early endorsement of Rangel, especially given that three of the four are part of the new ruling coalition in Congress, and they took it as an affront and a challenge. Petro and the administration were determined not to let her win, and they slowly began using the government’s influence to shift the balance in the final days.

The government’s political operators (interior minister Alfonso Prada and the president of the Senate Roy Barreras) lobbied behind closed doors for Rodríguez and used their influence to convince the other parties to support him. One by one, all the other parties switched sides: the Conservatives, then the 16 victims’ representatives, followed by the Liberals, the U, the Greens and even the opposition uribista CD. By Wednesday, a day before the election, it had become clear that the balance had decisively shifted and that Rodríguez would win. CR was the last party to switch over, once it became clear that Rangel could not win. Seeing the writing on the wall, Rangel withdrew her candidacy on Wednesday evening. Over just 48–72 hours, her support evaporated from 200+ votes to nothing.

On August 18, Carlos Hernán Rodríguez was elected comptroller general with 260 votes out of 286, with the support of 94 senators and 166 representatives. Every party, from the ex-FARC (Comunes) to uribismo, voted for him. Rangel received one vote from a senator (likely CR’s David Luna, who said he’d vote for her regardless), and another candidate, Elsa González, received one vote from a representative. There were 23 blank votes, a last-minute protest against a controversial process, which largely came from the left and centre-left. Although the vote was secret, several members of Congress publicly announced their votes. Those who voted blank include senators Gustavo Bolívar (Pacto), Jota Pe Hernández (Green) and Carlos Fernando Motoa (CR) and representatives Jennifer Pedraza (Dignidad), Daniel Carvalho (centrist), Cathy Juvinao (Green), Duvalier Sánchez (Green), Cristian Avendaño (Green) and Susana Boreal (Pacto). Even before the election got underway, Jennifer Pedraza (Dignidad-Bogotá) announced that she would file a legal challenge to nullify the election for alleged irregularities.

Carlos Hernán Rodríguez, the new Comptroller General, is a lawyer from the Valle del Cauca who previously served as auditor general (2017–2019), a little known position in charge of supervising the comptroller — he succeeded Córdoba, and was then in charge of supervising Córdoba (from summer 2018). Rodríguez was a departmental deputy in the Valle in 2002 when the FARC kidnapped 12 deputies (11 of whom were later killed in 2007). In politics, he has been close to several local politicians: he served in the cabinet of then-governor Angelino Garzón (later Vice President during Santos’ first term), and was later close to former senator Juan Carlos Martínez, convicted of parapolítica and investigated for drug trafficking, and supported the 2007 gubernatorial candidacy of Juan Carlos Abadía, a controversial politician who was removed from office in 2010. Rodríguez was departmental comptroller of the Valle and later departmental ombudsman. Speaking right after his election, Rodríguez took several minutes to offer individual thanks to all the parties that had supported him, but then vowed to be an independent comptroller who would not persecute the opposition or hand out bureaucratic sinecures.

Rodríguez is not a petrista, although he very much owes his victory to them. Critics argue that this makes him yet another contralor de bolsillo (a comptroller ‘in the pocket’ of a government). Quite clearly, the new government did what it had criticized so often while in opposition. Petro and the left constantly criticized Iván Duque for undermining the separation of powers by installing friends and allies as attorney general, ombudsman, inspector general and magistrates on the highest courts. Once in power, however, they did what all past administrations did: intervened in the election of the comptroller general to ensure the victory of their preferred candidate. Prada and others in the Pacto all swear that they didn’t offer anything to the other parties in exchange for supporting Rodríguez, that there was no secret political transaction under the table. Those on the left who stick to their principles are rightly disappointed and disspirited by this sad spectacle.

The other electoral duty of the new Congress is to elect the nine magistrates of the National Electoral Council (Consejo Nacional Electoral, CNE). This too proved to be worthy of a telenovela episode, with betrayals, rivalries and intrigues. The nine-member CNE is the body in charge of monitoring political parties and elections, with key powers including revoking ineligible candidacies, certifying election results, hearing challenges to election results, regulating campaign finance and overseeing electoral campaigns. The CNE is a politicized body, as its members are elected by Congress from candidates proposed by parties and coalitions in Congress: a lot of the members end up being defeated or retired politicians, with little expertise in election law (but a whole lot of political connections). As a result, the CNE is often seen as an ineffectual institution. The new government wants to abolish the CNE and replace with an electoral court similar to those found in other Latin American countries, like Mexico’s TEPJF.

The CNE is elected by proportional representation (a system similar to that used in congressional elections), and parties/coalitions usually need about 30–33 votes to elect one magistrate. Usually, the parties in Congress agree amongst themselves beforehand on the number of seats each party will get (based on their strength), and parties usually support each others’ candidates by voting for a single list in the end.

Based on each party’s strength in Congress, the expected split was two for the Pacto, two for the Liberals and one seat each for the Conservatives, La U, CR, CD and the Greens.

On August 24, last minute controversies and intrigues forced the session to be postponed and rescheduled. There were two major issues. On the one hand, the uribista Centro Democrático (CD) was insisting that its candidate be former representative Álvaro Hernán Prada, who had been indicted by the Supreme Court in Álvaro Uribe’s witness tampering case just days before. The other parties, particularly the Pacto, didn’t want to vote for a list with Prada on it and urged the CD to replace him with another name, but they refused. On the other hand, at the last minute, the Pacto got overly ambitious and started to think that they had the votes to win not just two but three seats, something which infuriated the Liberals and other parties.

Congress reconvened on August 31 to elect the CNE. The CD insisted on the candidacy of Prada, and therefore ran a separate list. The other parties ran a common list with all their candidates. In the Pacto, after last minute negotiations, the Polo Democrático, which has been complaining about its lack of representation in the new government, managed to place its candidate, Alba Luz Velásquez, in an eligible position on the list, ahead of Álvaro Echeverry, an ally of Roy Barreras (who dropped to ninth place on the list).

In the end, the new CNE will, as expected, be made up of two magistrates from the Pacto, two from the Liberals and one each from the Conservatives, La U, CR, CD and the Greens.

The uribista list with Álvaro Hernán Prada won 31 votes, barely enough votes to win. Prada was nervous all day because the CD on its own, with 15 representatives and 13 senators, did not have enough votes to elect him, so he needed the support of a few other congressmen. Barreras tried to hinder this by requiring that the vote be public (roll call), forcing congressmen to comply with the decision of their caucus (and basically all other parties supported the common list). CD senator Paloma Valencia said that the public roll call vote was not “free election” and a way for the government to “discipline congressmen” — she fails to mention that the election of the CNE in 2018, when her party had the presidency of the Senate, was also a public roll call vote. Prada got even more nervous when a member of his own party failed to answer the call: senator Yenny Rozo (close to Prada’s own rival in Huila, former senator Ernesto Macías) did not vote, even though she was physically present (she claims she was temporarily absent because she was sick). However, in the end, Prada was elected thanks to the unexpected support of Rodolfo Hernández (the former presidential candidate, now a senator) and his former running mate Marelen Castillo. He was also supported by Erika Sánchez (elected for Rodolfo’s Liga, although already distanced from him) and far-right Afro-Colombian representative Miguel Polo Polo (close to CD senator María Fernanda Cabal).

On the other side, Barreras tried to organize a last-ditch attempt to elect Echeverry as the Pacto’s third magistrate. He wanted all congressmen from the parties supporting the common list to vote. His plan fell apart when Pacto senator Gustavo Bolívar, Barreras’ arch-nemesis in the ruling party, and his new ally, Antioquia representative Susana Boreal, did not answer the roll call (even though both were in attendance on the day). Barreras called him out and said that all those in attendance needed to vote. He didn’t: Bolívar was outside the chamber, with Boreal, to film a Twitter video explaining their decision not to vote. They criticized some of the candidates (from other parties) on the common list supported by the Pacto, while apologizing to their ‘good candidates’ mixed up on the same list.

Without Bolívar and Boreal, and with Prada unexpectedly getting the votes he needed, Barreras’ ploy failed. Some other members were also absent (but with excuses).

The new magistrates of the CNE are:

• Fabiola Márquez (Pacto): Lawyer specialized in administrative law. An old ally of Gustavo Petro, she was Petro’s candidate for the CNE in 2018.
• Alba Lucia Velásquez (Pacto-Polo): Lawyer specialized in labour law who has held local office in Cundinamarca. In the March congressional elections, she was part of the Pacto’s legal team overseeing the final vote count (escrutinio).
• Benjamín Ortiz Torres (Liberal): Lawyer specialized in electoral law and close ally of Alexander Vega, the national civil registrar. He worked for 15 years as secretary general of the CNE (2002–2017) and had been serving as secretary general of the Registraduría, headed by Vega. Vega’s competence and credibility suffered a big blow with the fiasco of the preconteo in the congressional elections in March.
• Altus Baquero (Liberal): Lawyer specialized in administrative law and contractor in various public institutions. He is a close friend of the ombudsman, Carlos Camargo, and has served as the secretary general in the ombudsman’s office (Defensoría) since 2020.
• Alfonso Campo Martínez (Conservative): A lawyer who served as head of the National Protection Unit (UNP) from 2020 to 2022, under Duque. He comes from a Conservative political family in Cesar.
• César Lorduy (CR): Former Atlántico charista representative (2018–2022) who lost reelection in March while trying to ‘jump’ to the Senate, despite having the personal support of Fuad Char, the patriarch of the Char clan. In 1979, Lorduy, who was 23, was accused of killing a 16-year-old girl, but the case was dropped because of the statute of limitations. He insists that it was an accident (a claim disputed by the victim’s family) and that he was young at the time.
• Maritza Martínez (La U): Former senator (2010–2022) from Meta who did not seeking reelection in March. She is the political ‘heiress’ of her husband, former governor and senator Luis Carlos Torres, accused of contract irregularities while he was governor and investigated for parapolítica.
• Cristian Ricardo Quiroz (Green): Lawyer specialized in procedural law who has been the legal director of the Green party, representing the party in legal cases before the CNE and the Council of State.
• Álvaro Hernán Prada (CD): Former Huila representative (2014–2021) and unsuccessful uribista candidate for Senate in 2022. Since 2020, he has been Álvaro Uribe’s main co-defendant in Uribe’s witness tampering case, accused of bribing a witness to change his testimony. Like Uribe, Prada resigned his seat in Congress so that his case would pass from the Supreme Court to the Fiscalía, but unlike Uribe, he was not successful. As aforementioned, the Court has now formally indicted him and summoned him to trial. Journalist Daniel Coronell says that Prada’s candidacy to the CNE is another effort to have his case transferred to a friendlier prosecutor in the Fiscalía (precedent holds that the Fiscalía is competent to hear cases against CNE magistrates).

Total peace

One of the early priorities of the new administration is paz total, or ‘total peace’. This means, essentially, ending the remaining internal armed conflicts in Colombia through peace negotiations with the ELN guerrilla and judicial surrender agreements with the FARC dissidents and the plethora of other groups like the ‘Clan del Golfo’. The government has made several announcements in this direction, but it remains unclear what the strategy is. On top of that, it has already become clear that ‘total peace’ will be much more difficult and lengthy than the government would have wished.

The new administration has made a series of major announcements that change the classic paradigm of security and defence policy, in line with Petro’s promises of a new ‘humane security’ strategy. These announcements include:

• Suspending precision bombing, particularly when minors may be present in the camps of the armed groups, to avoid the death of minors in bombing raids as happened during Duque’s administration.
• Petro’s proposal to not extradite drug traffickers who negotiate judicial benefits with the State. This would be an incentive for criminal groups linked to drug trafficking, like the Clan del Golfo, to negotiate their surrender in exchange for avoiding extradition to the United States. However, the threat of extradition has become a key part of the Colombian government’s strategy against drug lords. The Biden administration has only said that the proposal must be discussed. In the meantime, however, Petro has continued to sign extradition requests, including one for Pacto senator Piedad Córdoba’s brother, wanted in the US on drug charges.
• Suspending aerial fumigation of coca crops and prioritizing voluntary eradication and crop substitution. This is in line with the drug reform chapter of the 2016 peace agreement with the FARC, but a shift from Duque’s ‘war on drugs’ focus.
• Petro’s warning to military officers that they will be evaluated based on avoiding and limiting massacres and impunity. This is a significant shift in military doctrine, away from repressive strategies, and is the opposite of the perverse ‘body count’ policies which led to the false positives scandal (over 6,400 extrajudicial assassinations by the armed forces). It has been welcomed by the UN and is in line with the truth commission’s recommendations, but will require a change in mentality in the military.

These announcements come on top of restarting the peace negotiations with the ELN in Cuba, the ‘purge’ of the military high command with the announcement of the new military leadership in August (see here) and Petro’s push for a new global drug policy.

While these announcements may go in the right direction, experts have warned that, by putting all its cards on the table, the government is taking away its own sticks with which to pressure armed groups into negotiating seriously. Colombian history shows that conceding too much, too soon to armed groups is a bad strategy. In addition, some of these announcements may create perverse incentives for criminals: the government’s bizarre public announcement that it will suspend strategic bombing may allow armed groups to regroup in bigger camps.

Moreover, these announcements seem lost without a clear, coherent security strategy and roadmaps. Too many different voices have been making policy announcements on this topic — Petro, the defence minister, the foreign minister, the high commissioner for peace, senators like Iván Cepeda…

The government has started to offer the outlines of its strategy with its new security bill in Congress. On August 30, interior minister Alfonso Prada presented the government’s security bill. The bill extends law 418 of 1997 (the public order law) for four years, as all successive governments have done since then (with modifications), as it grants the government special powers to enter peace talks.

The government’s text proposes some important changes to peace and security policies. Firstly, it allows the government to negotiate with illegal armed structures and not just ‘armed groups’ — a tiny semantic change that could be significant, as it would allow the State to negotiate with less organized illegal structures that don’t have status as political belligerents (unlike the ELN guerrilla). Secondly, the bill creates the idea of ‘partial agreements’ with armed groups, which could mean partial agreements with groups halfway through negotiations that would not include disarmament and demobilization — a big shift from the Santos administration’s underlying principle of “nothing is agreed upon until everything is agreed upon” in Havana. These would include humanitarian agreements that would be applied immediately. Some, like former peace negotiator and now senator Humberto de la Calle, are concerned about this, fearing it may encourage armed groups to reach partial deals without going the entire way towards peace and disarmament. Finally, the text would create “regions of peace” where peace negotiations could be held, reviving the possibility of peace talks on Colombian territory, a touchy issue because of the ghost of the Caguán zona de despeje (DMZ) fiasco. Senator Iván Cepeda, a co-author of the bill, assured that there would be no despejes and mentioned the possibility of nine such regions. The law allows the government to temporarily suspend arrest warrants against members of illegal armed groups in certain areas of the national territory during peace talks.

In addition, the bill peace an whole-of-government issue by making all ministers responsible for the issue, creates a ‘peace cabinet’ (with all ministers, with bimonthly confidential meetings), creates a ‘social service for peace’ as a civilian alternative to military service (the government wishes to abolish conscription) and unifies the different funds for peace into a single fund.

On the ground, Petro’s total peace is off to a bit of a rocky start.

On the plus side, total peace seems to be attractive to many armed groups. According to Indepaz, 22 armed groups have indicated their interest in the ‘total peace’, including the ELN and the Clan del Golfo as well as many FARC dissidents (including Iván Márquez’s Segunda Marquetalia) and narco-criminal groups like the Oficina de Envigado.

While the ELN has shown its willingness for peace, it dislikes Petro’s idea of total peace. The ELN refuses to be treated the same way as criminal organizations, and the guerrilla’s top commander, Antonio García, has said that he disagrees with the notion of total peace because “wars are necessary”.

While the government looks to start peace negotiations with armed groups, some feel as if it’s been neglecting the implementation of the 2016 peace agreement with the FARC. Petro has yet to appoint many of the directors of the various agencies and departments in charge of implementation, and the new government has not yet convened a meeting of the joint commission with the ex-FARC that monitors implementation. More than anything, this may be a reflection of the new government’s disorganization and a certain level of unpreparedness.

Sergio Jaramillo, Santos’ former high commissioner for peace and one of the main players in the peace process with the FARC, has criticized Petro’s total peace, saying that by focusing all its attention on negotiations with ‘narcos’ and criminal organizations, the government has ignored the implementation of the peace agreement. Like others, Jaramillo has also been very critical of the possibility of any kind of peace negotiations with FARC dissidents and other criminal organizations, saying that the only options for those groups are collective surrender agreements or judicial negotiations. The government has yet to present its bills that would allow for such possibilities.

Violence has continued since Petro took office in August. According to Indepaz, there have been 18 massacres since August 7 (up until Sept. 12), killing 64 people — compared to four in the same period in 2021 and 17 in 2020. According to the same source, 16 social leaders and human rights activists have been murdered since Petro’s inauguration. On September 2, seven police officers were killed in an ambush outside of Neiva (Huila), with FARC dissidents being held responsible. Petro said that the attack was an act of sabotage against total peace. The right-wing opposition used the opportunity to attack Petro’s security policies: Álvaro Uribe said that the “terrorists mock generosity, are dismissive of social offers and strengthen their criminal capacity with impunity” and far-right uribista senator María Fernanda Cabal claimed that the attack was a reflection of what happens when “police organization, command hierarchy, seniority and honour” are destroyed.

Obviously, one cannot expect a decades-old conflict to end overnight. However, peace negotiations amidst continuing violence in Colombia is politically very difficult for the government, as the peace process with the FARC showed. At the same time, however, beginning a peace process with a ceasefire — what the current administration appears keen on doing, with talks of a ‘multilateral’ ceasefire — may not necessarily be a good idea, as Humberto de la Calle has warned.

The rebranding of the ESMAD

The ESMAD (Escuadrones Móviles Antidisturbios) are the riot police squads of the Colombian National Police. Since the 2019 protests, it has repeatedly been accused of police brutality, abuse and disproportionate use of force against mostly peaceful protesters, and is held responsible for the violent deaths of several peaceful protesters, most infamously 18-year-old student Dilan Cruz in November 2019. The ESMAD’s brutality and violence have been denounced and documented by Amnesty International, HRW and the United Nations, among others. In September 2020, the Supreme Court found evidence of a “systematic, violent, arbitrary and disproportionate intervention” of law enforcement during protests and ordered authorities to adopt several measures to guarantee the right to peaceful protest, including suspending the use of 12 gauge shotguns (the same ‘non-lethal’ weapon that killed Dilan Cruz in 2019).

Many on the left have been pushing to abolish the ESMAD, while others has instead proposed to reform the unit. The right has largely closed ranks behind the police and defended the ESMAD and its behaviour. Gustavo Petro promised to abolish the ESMAD and replace it with a new unit.

On August 23, the new police director, General Henry Sanabria, announced that the ESMAD will be transformed into a “Unidad de Diálogo y Acompañamiento a la Manifestación Pública” (public manifestation accompaniment and dialogue unit). The new unit will have new protocols and will seek to defuse tensions with protesters through dialogue, but the final objective will be the same as that of the ESMAD, a force of last resort to contain violence. The new unit will include two components: one to accompany the police forces, to avoid and limit violence and excessive use of force (moderating the police’s reaction), and a more traditional intervention force to contain violence. The new unit will have new colours and uniforms: black will be replaced by dark blue uniforms, with new helmets. The vehicles, which will now include ambulances in addition to SWAT vehicles and water cannons, will be white and blue.

Notably absent from the announcement were any real changes to the new unit’s mission and training. Moreover, Sanabria’s announcement focused a lot, perhaps too much, on the cosmetic changes: new uniforms, helmets and vehicles and new colours, awfully close to Duque’s small police reform in 2021, where the main thing in the public imagination were the new uniforms (rather than any major structural changes). If the new government’s changes to the ESMAD are structural, they should probably have been announced as part of a broader institutional reform of the police forces and with greater details about the new riot police unit’s mission, training and protocols. Therefore, what was announced looks more like a rebranding than anything else.

Reactions to the rebranding of the ESMAD were mixed. Unsurprisingly, there was a lot of disappointment on the left, among Petro’s voters, who want the ESMAD to be abolished rather than merely reformed or replaced. Pacto Histórico senator Gustavo Bolívar and representative Susana Boreal both reiterated that they want the ESMAD to be abolished. Petristas and left-wing influencers on social media have voiced their disappointment and discontent with what they consider to be a mere rebranding — some saying that they voted for the dismantlement of the ESMAD and nothing else. This is the first case of serious left-wing disappointment/discontent with the new government.

On the right, the possible ‘participation’ of the very controversial Primera Línea (a ‘first line’ group of young people who physically confront law enforcement during protests) in the reform of the ESMAD has generated a lot of controversy. Right-wing politicians like former presidential candidate Fico Gutiérrez or CD senator Miguel Uribe Turbay tweeted that it’s the Primera Línea that should be dismantled, not the ESMAD. The right considers the Primera Línea to be a criminal organization of thugs and delinquents, some on the left consider them to be protesters who ‘protect’ others from police violence and who have been unjustly stigmatized and persecuted as ‘political prisoners’.

On September 2, Sanabria met with members of the Primera Línea to discuss police reform and the ESMAD. Following the meeting, Sanabria announced that the use of 12 gauge shotguns and paintball guns would be banned and the use of the ‘Venom’ automatic projectile launcher would be discussed with the president and defence minister.

Gas prices and subsidies: A difficult choice

President Gustavo Petro has announced that gas and diesel prices will increase, reducing fuel subsidies that are a huge burden on public finances.

Colombia has some of the lowest gas prices in Latin America, besides Venezuela and Bolivia, and some of the lowest prices in the world. The price per litre is about US$ 0.57 in Colombia, compared to a bit over $1 in the US and $ 1.97 in the UK. Since 2007, the Fondo de Estabilización de Precios de los Combustibles (fuel price stabilization fund, FEPC) has subsidized gasoline and diesel prices for consumers. The state has paid Ecopetrol (the predominantly state-owned oil company) the difference between international prices and the ‘fixed’ domestic market price, in order to mitigate the impact of price volatilities on the international market. Because international prices have almost always been higher than the fixed domestic price, this has become a huge fiscal burden for the state. As minister Vélez’s mistake brought to public attention, the FEPC’s annual deficit is nearly 40 trillion pesos (US$ 9 billion). The government’s ambitious tax reform wants to raise 25 trillion pesos annually. The fund’s deficit has soared since late 2020 because of the effects of the post-pandemic recovery on oil production and oil prices (and now the war in Ukraine). Because it subsidizes car and motorcycle owners (who tend to be somewhat wealthier), the FEPC is regressive: according to a 2019 IMF study, the top two income deciles receive 47% of fuel subsidies while the bottom two deciles receive just 7%. All in all, the FEPC’s massive deficit is a big problem: the outgoing administration’s medium-term fiscal framework said it was one of the biggest short-term challenges for the government, and experts have said that the deficit threatens the country’s fiscal sustainability.

What to do with fuel prices quickly became one of the new administration’s first quandaries. It put Petro between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, the ‘environmentalist’ Petro hates dirty fossil fuels and wants to move away from the extractivist model, phasing out oil production within 10–15 years. On the other hand, the ‘statist’ Petro likes strong state-owned companies protected from market volatilities and measures that help the poor (an increase in fuel prices would increase all prices) and the ‘politician’ Petro wants to avoid the social unrest that could be triggered, like in France and Ecuador in 2019, by higher fuel prices.

It appears as if, on this issue, Petro was convinced by his finance minister, the centrist José Antonio Ocampo, that the FEPC’s deficit threatens his entire administration’s ability to undertake ambitious social reforms and would cancel out the tax reform. In the end, Petro made an unpopular and very difficult, but responsible decision — definitely not a ‘populist’ decision. The challenge now will be to gradually increase fuel prices without increasing inflationary pressure. In August 2022, the annual inflation rate was 10.8%, the highest since 1999.

To justify his decision, Petro posted a long Twitter thread in which he says that half of the budget deficit is due to fuel subsidies and posing the rhetorical question whether it’s worth subsidizing fuel for 40 trillion pesos when infant mortality due to malnutrition is increasing. He asked Congress to consider measures to alleviate the impact of price increases on consumers and the long-term future of the FEPC.

In anticipation of the looming political battle over fuel prices, Petro and his supporters have blamed the previous (Duque) administration for irresponsibly accumulating the FEPC’s deficit. They’re not entirely wrong: the FEPC deficit is a hot potato that no government has wanted to handle (in fact it is a long-term problem that isn’t Duque’s fault). However, the Duque administration was cognizant of the major risks posed by the deficit and it did pay off part of the FEPC’s deficit (with a payment of 14.2 trillion pesos in 2022 Q1, and 28.5 trillion budgeted) and it did begin to gradually increase fuel prices before leaving office. However, it’s true that the Duque administration deliberately left most of the dirty work to the incoming administration.

To soften the blow, as a carrot, Petro, on the other hand, wants to reduce electricity prices. Utility prices have increased in recent months, particularly in the Caribbean region. Pressed to take action, Petro announced that the government would ‘intervene’ the energy and gas regulatory commission (CREG) to regulate prices. He justified his decision saying that an article in Duque’s 2018–2022 development plan allows the president or the energy minister to assume the powers of the CREG. Petro’s announcement, which contrasted with energy minister Irene Vélez’s more conciliatory approach days earlier (proposing dialogue and compromise with the electricity sector), raised concerns.

On September 16, energy minister Irene Vélez announced that the government, the CREG and electricity companies had reached an agreement to reduce electricity prices. Short-term measures include allowing electricity retailers to defer at least 20% of their obligations to generators, transmittors and distributors, renegotiating the contracts between retailers and generators and technical modifications to the variables used to calculate rates.

The Nicaragua scandal and foreign policy

On August 12, the OAS adopted a resolution condemning human rights violations in Nicaragua, after Daniel Ortega’s regime shut down NGOs and persecuted the Catholic Church. 27 countries voted in favour (one against and four abstentions). Two countries were absent: Nicaragua and Colombia.

Colombia’s noted absence immediately caused controversy in Colombia, with many demanding explanations. Initially, Colombia’s new ambassador to the OAS Luis Ernesto Vargas said that he had not yet been formally appointed or presented his documents — although Colombia has an interim representative in the meantime. This explanation didn’t convince everyone, and allowed for speculation about the ‘real reasons’ to continue. Left-leaning columnist Ramiro Bejarano claimed that a “trusted source” told him that Colombia’s absence was because of a last-minute “dirty trick” by the outgoing ambassador to the OAS, the ultra-conservative Alejandro Ordóñez, who didn’t inform the new ambassador about the session.

On August 28, however, Noticias Caracol revealed, through a freedom of information petition, that foreign minister Álvaro Leyva ordered Colombia’s representative to be absent. The foreign ministry stated that the absence was related to “sensitive, confidential aspects of foreign policy.”

Two days later, in a press release, the foreign ministry said that Colombia’s absence was due to “strategic and humanitarian reasons” and not ideological reasons. Colombia kept diplomatic silence because it “could not make public the international negotiations that were being carried out before obtaining a result.” The press release cryptically claimed that a “window of opportunity for a major humanitarian action in Nicaragua coincided with the vote that day.”

It is likely that this ‘international negotiation’ is related to the territorial and maritime dispute with Nicaragua that is before the ICJ. In 2012, while the ICJ upheld Colombian sovereignty over the archipelago of San Andrés and Providencia and other disputed islands, the court awarded Nicaragua an important portion of maritime territory (about 75,000 square km, see map). In 2013, Nicaragua filed proceedings against Colombia, claiming that it was violating its new EEZ. In April 2022, the ICJ ruled in Nicaragua’s favour, finding that Colombia had violated Nicaragua’s sovereign rights and jurisdiction in its EEZ. The ICJ ordered Colombia to immediately cease its activities in the area. Colombia, which withdrew from the ICJ’s jurisdiction in 2013, has accused Nicaragua of interfering with the fishing rights of the indigenous Raizal people of San Andrés and Providencia.

On August 27, the independent Nicaraguan newspaper Confidencial said that Petro had avoided condemning Ortega to seek a negotiation with Nicaragua over the application of the 2012 ICJ ruling. In Colombia, Daniel Coronell in W Radio confirmed that the ‘sensitive, confidential’ matter was an attempt by the new administration to negotiate the application of the ruling, by finding a bilateral settlement (out of court) on the dispute. Some days later, Coronell revealed that Petro had sought to negotiate the release of 14 political prisoners.

However, this diplomatic strategy was unsuccessful. On September 6, Confidencial reported that a pro-Ortega radio host considered to be an unofficial spokesperson for the regime rejected any negotiation with Colombia, saying that the ICJ’s ruling and Nicaragua’s sovereignty were not up for discussion. He added that Nicaragua would only be willing to grant fishing permits to Raizal fishermen when Colombia withdraws its naval ships from the disputed waters.

The Nicaragua ‘scandal’ created a real domestic firestorm. The new uribista opposition, looking for a good issue to attack the government on, announced it would present a motion of no confidence against foreign minister Leyva. Given the government’s majorities in Congress, the motion has no chance of succeeding (not a single motion of no confidence against a minister has been successful since 1991, although some ministers resigned beforehand) and is a merely symbolic exercise by the opposition.

Besides the political points that the CD is hoping to score on this touchy foreign policy topic, the government’s failed attempt at appeasing the Nicaraguan regime to get a settlement on the border dispute was criticized by many. Sandra Borda, a foreign policy expert (and former senatorial candidate for the Nuevo Liberalismo who voted for Petro in the runoff), said that the government’s negotiation strategy incredibly “naive” and “unsophisticated and half-childish” in a column in Infobae. After this first major diplomatic flop, Leyva seems to have learned from his mistakes. In a recent interview with Coronell, he made clear that Colombia is in no way with Ortega.

Even if Colombia’s controversial absence from the OAS vote was not because of any ideological affinity with the Sandinista regime in Managua, the intentional absence was a sea-change in Colombian foreign policy. Colombian diplomacy has traditionally advocated for democracy and human rights, and condemned human rights violations in other countries (some might contend this is all quite hypocritical). In the past, Colombia, when it was one of the lone right-wing and pro-US countries in Latin America, saw in the OAS a more friendly forum. In contrast, Petro’s early foreign policy is proving to be more pragmatic, willing to keep silent about terrible human rights abuses in Nicaragua in order to take a big risk in seeking a bilateral negotiation with Ortega.

The Nicaragua scandal is not the only foreign policy gaffe by the new administration. In late August, Petro co-signed a “letter of support” for Argentina’s Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner with Presidents Alberto Fernández of Argentina, AMLO of Mexico and Luis Arce of Bolivia after a prosecutor requested a 12-year prison sentence against her on corruption charges. The letter by the three left-wing heads of state claimed that the charges against her were an “unjustifiable judicial persecution” that aimed to remove Kirchner from public life and to “bury the values and ideals she represents, with the ultimate goal of implementing a neoliberal model.” On September 4, after the new Chilean constitution proposal was soundly rejected in a national plebiscite by 61.9% of voters, Petro tweeted “Revivió Pinochet” (Pinochet revived). The Chilean vote likely stung for Petro, given that he has been very close to Chilean President Gabriel Boric and has often looked to emulate Boric’s political style and his ‘brand’ of left-wing politics. However, his remarks were widely seen as inappropriate for a foreign head of state, sharing personal, political opinions on a free election in another country. Petro needs to stop acting as a left-wing political leader impulsively tweeting out his opinions, and start acting more as a head of state.

The one foreign policy file where Petro’s administration has had some early successes is on the most important file of all: Venezuela. Colombia and Venezuela (i.e. Nicolás Maduro’s government) have now restored diplomatic relations, broken since 2019, and exchanged ambassadors. Petro’s new ambassador to Caracas, former senator Armando Benedetti, was warmly welcomed by Maduro. Venezuela’s new ambassador in Bogotá, Félix Plasencia, has met with Leyva and Petro.

Following a visit by Colombian commerce and industry minister Germán Umaña to Caracas on September 9, both countries announced a partial reopening of the Colombian-Venezuelan border, largely closed to vehicles and merchandise since Venezuela unilaterally closed the border in 2019. From September 26, commercial flights (Bogotá-Caracas and Bogotá-Valencia) and freight transport will resume. The border will remain closed to private vehicles for now.

While there is a great potential for Colombia’s economy with the reopening of commercial and economic ties with Venezuela, there are also many challenges that come with reopening the border. Most notably, since the first border closures in 2015, a huge illegal contraband trade has taken root (controlled by illegal armed groups), backed by an institutionalized system of corruption in Venezuela.

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