English

8/7/2022

Colombia facing a new scene

Petro grows 10% points and obtains 50.4% of the vote

The victory of Gustavo Petro and his vice president Francia Márquez represents a blow to the Colombian regime and, as a consequence, to the aspirations of the sectors of the political right and imperialism on the continent.

Petro grows 10% points and obtains 50.4% of the vote, a difference of more than 3 points over its contender Rodolfo Hernández. This was influenced by an increase in the participation of a million new voters compared to the first round and a decrease in the number of “none of the above” [blank vote, contested vote] votes. Also for a militant campaign that limited the weight of fraud and traditional devices of political manipulation.

Polarization

The result of the election cannot be dissociated from the trend towards social and political polarization that prevails in Colombia.

For example: the geographical distribution of votes, which repeated that of the first round. Petro won widely in the poor regions of Cauca, the Southwest, the Caribbean and the Amazon, in addition to the capital Bogotá and the big cities. While Hernández had his best performance in the northern and central areas of the country, that are characterized by being more conservative and with greater  acquisitive power. Also in Antioquia, stronghold of Uribismo.

Another expression of this polarization is the transfer of the votes of those candidates who were left out of the second round. Those of “Fico” Gutiérrez (supported by uribismo), went almost entirely to Hernández. While those from the political center, contrary to the surveys, mostly opted for Petro.

The polarization in Colombia crystallizes after the popular rebellion of 2021, with months of strikes, public demonstrations, blockades and street riots. A relevant fact is that the coalition led by Petro, the Historical Pact, is made up of most of the political expressions that participated in those days. This includes both the sectors that were in favor of an agreed solution with the government of Iván Duque (the so-called Strike Committee) and those who were fighting to make way for an alternative leadership (chanting “the Strike Committee does not represent us”).

Francia Márquez’s candidacy for the vice presidency, to the detriment of the historic Liberal Party, and his current candidacy to head the nascent Ministry of Women and Equality, respond to this discontent. Francia, an outstanding environmental and social leader, acted during the campaign as the representative of the most neglected sectors, and also of the youth activism that starred in the blockades during the mentioned rebellion. This helped many of those who challenged Petro’s trajectory on the left and his role in supporting the government of Iván Duque at the time of the protests, to accept the leadership of the former guerrilla.

Along with this figure, also a modification in the contest of the second round occurred. The Historical Pact went from launching public acts that sought massiveness to focus on vote by vote, niche campaigns and those traveled in all corners of the country, with Petro and the main referents at the head. In favor of this initiative, the militant structure of the forces that make up the Historical Pact was revealed.

All this collaborated in awakening the support of new sectors of the exploited population that were outside the electoral processes.

The great majorities of the country live the triumph of the Historical Pact as their own victory, although the meaning of that victory is not the same among its supporters. Petro brings together all the variants with popular ascendancy, without prejudice to the fact that each one supports a divergent platform or even opposes that of another fraction of the coalition.

“Leftist government”

The future government of Petro is pointed out as the first “leftist” one in Colombia. But this statement must be clarified.

The “left” wing of Colombian nationalism was deprived of this opportunity by extreme resources: the assassination of its political leaders and the extermination of thousands of militants of all tendencies. That was an appeal to fascism executed by “civilian” colombian governments in collaboration with the “democracy” of USA. In just the same way, the experience of another “left” sector, the guerrillas, who were at the head of a popular movement with a peasant social base for long decades, but was defeated by the political and military offensive of former President Álvaro Uribe.

Truly, the assumption of Petro raises a regime change. But this change does not consist of a break with the current framework, but rather a recycling of the current political and social order, which will seek to be carried forward through an orderly transition. It is a variant that has already been tested by former President Juan Manuel Santos.

In 2016, Santos signed the peace agreements with the guerrillas in Oslo and Havana. This commitment was endorsed by a sector of the Colombian bourgeoisie and by the former US President Barack Obama.

The agreements offered a series of democratic guarantees for the defeated ex-combatants.

In return, they allowed imperialism to close a front in its backyard and proceed to a continental appeasement that included both the Latin American governments of the “left” and the “right”.

The agreement was the determining factor in the estrangement between Santos and Uribe. The latter rejected it and proposed to go on a final offensive. They expressed divergent strategies in the bourgeoisie and imperialism. Donald Trump’s victory in the United States and Iván Duque’s in Colombia (Uribe’s Dauphin), have truncated this transition.

Petro wins with the mandate of a fraction of the Colombian bourgeoisie to resume the transition made explicit in the peace accords. That is to say, to restore the elementary conditions of capitalist regime in Colombia. Then it is not surprising his proposal for a “national agreement”, nor that his campaign has integrated sectors that respond to Santos. As well as for his proposal of economists from the liberal right (responsible for the economic crisis of the 90s) as Ministry of Finance.

His electoral victory unfailingly hits the most reactionary and fascistic variants of the regime, which now will not only have to accept a transition, but one headed by Petro, a character totally awkward to his political band.

The elected government

Petro’s government program, although moderate in the proposed transformations, cannot advance in its most elementary points without a clash with the capital. Petro does not have a majority in Congress or in the ranks of the judicial system. Neither in the control organisms, starting with the Attorney State’s Office, whose main positions were appointed by his predecessor.

During the electoral campaign, the elected president expressed his intention to declare an “economic emergency” that would confer him exceptional powers. But he could not declare it without the approval of the Constitutional Court, which is dominated by representatives of the right sectors. The incoming administration will have to bargain its package of reforms with the opposition groups, so they will end up cut or directly blocked.

Petro already ran into this obstacle when he was mayor of Bogotá between 2012 and 2015: many of his initiatives were stopped by the capital’s legislature, the City Council. This is an addition to the armed forces, which consider the arrival of the former guerrilla at the government house with suspicion and mistrust.

A reform plan would require dismantling the apparatus of the Uribe regime which, as we pointed out, encompasses much more than the head of state. In his 2017 campaign, Petro formulated the initiative of a constituent Assembly in order to alter the political regime.

Now, that perspective is explicitly ruled out. Its place is taken by a national agreement with the same ones that it is necessary to fight to achieve any reform.

Petro plans to end open-pit mining and limit oil exploitation. Even more, it raises the need to advance in an energy reconversion and the generation of clean and renewable energy sources. It is important to clarify that Petro’s perspective is to stop the exploration of new deposits, not to end the exploitation of oil. The permits and concessions already granted remain in force, which enables their beneficiaries to maintain the current levels of extraction at least for the next four years. The entire present structure, usufructuated by private capital, will continue to operate as before. By deliberately excluding expropriations from its agenda, any energy reconversion would not have the essential resources for a transition of this magnitude.

But even the modest limits that the president-elect intends to impose will most likely not thrive either. The oil and mining industry represents 50% of Colombian exports, and their income reports several points of GDP. The capitalists cannot be deprived of these resources, all the more so when Colombia will have to apply its own austerity recipes to overcome the fiscal deficit of 7.1% of GDP “inherited” from the previous administration.

In the framework of the world crisis, the conditions and pressures of the IMF and international capital are strengthened. Petro’s agenda includes continuing to pay foreign debt commitments on time and continuing friendly relations with USA.

For now, the establishment is asking for concrete announcements to calm down the private capital. Although Petro gave temporizing signals in his speech at the close of the elections (when he assured that he is going to “develop capitalism”), this is not enough. The private capital demands more precision: among other things, about the composition of the government cabinet. In the transition that is opening, the capitalist class won’t miss out on market blows if necessary, in order to condition the incoming government.

When considering another central element of his program, the agrarian reform, Petro also opted to avoid expropriations. Instead he opted for the public purchase of idle land. Petro spoke in favour of a fiscal discourage to large farms, promoting a tax on land that remains unproductive.

In Colombia, the richest 1.5% of the population concentrates half of the arable land.

The Historical Pact also includes a pension reform in its agenda. In Colombia there is a private system that is in crisis, condemning retirees to miserable salaries. But, instead of putting an end to the business of the private administrators and expropriating them, the intention is to consecrate a mixed system, in which the amount guaranteed by the public system would be of total poverty. It is an exit similar to the one proposed by Boric in Chile. The State comes to the rescue of private capital, not retirees.

The spokesmen of the Historical Pact argue that these transformations will generate a new matrix of productive development. To obtain the required financing, they speak of a tax reform that includes a tax on wealth and the tax indicated on idle land.

But this will have to pass through the filter of parliament, where it will be mutilated, as has already been happening with similar initiatives by Boric in Chile.

Where will the necessary funds for the purchase of land or for a minimum allowance for those who have not managed to retire, or subsidies for the unemployed come from?

It is clear that all this assembly has an absolutely precarious and uncertain grounding.

In a country with a huge deficit, and without attacking property relations and capital gains, rather than in the presence of the promised program to expand social rights (social assistance, pensions, health, education), we would be in the presence of its opposite: a cut in public spending, with its usual impact on the worker’s pocket.

Tasks

For left wing fighters, the popular phenomenon opened by Petro’s victory deserves maximum attention. This cannot be confused with a “critical” support for Petro, nor with the expectation that Petro’s government could become “leftist”.

One major task is to accompany the experience of workers and peasants with a government that they feel is their own, but whose fundamental outlines are dictated by the capitalists. But above alll, to defend workers’ political independence and help the construction of an alternative leadership: a workers’ and socialist political party. The militant call from the “Prensa Obrera” pages before the second round of elections was oriented along these lines: vote against Hernández and Uribismo.

It is essential to build an own agenda, which places workers’ and popular demands in the foreground, which will necessarily collide with the capitalists’ interests and with the commitments that Petro seeks to establish. These are the current tasks.

Versión en español.