Colombia's dire president gets desperate

Hindustan Times

7 hours ago

IT has been a frustrating few years for Gustavo Petro, Colombia's first avowedly left-wing president. He was elected in 2022 on a promise to overhaul pensions, the health-care system and labour laws, and to dramatically reduce inequality. He also vowed to establish 'Total Peace' by negotiating with all armed groups in the conflict-riven country. Yet Mr Petro's pugilistic governing style has made it hard to get support in Congress, while the courts have held up some of his reforms. Exasperated, Mr Petro is now flirting with changing the constitution. PREMIUM Colombian President Gustavo Petro attends the Climate Ambition Summit at the United Nations Headquarters on September 20, 2023.(AFP)
Colombia needs reform. It is among the world's most unequal countries. It is painfully hard for a poor child to ascend into the middle class. In a study by the World Bank from 2018, Colombia had the lowest intergenerational income mobility among a group of 75 countries.
Yet Mr Petro's plans have been flawed. Take health-care reform. Colombia's system is administered by 27 private insurers. Only seven of these have enough financial liquidity to meet demands by regulators. Yet rather than tweak the system, which provides cheaper health care than in most countries in Latin America, Mr Petro threatened to tear it up. Last year he proposed a bill that would nationalise all private insurers. When Congress shelved this proposal, regulators took over the two largest insurers. In March the lower house passed a watered-down version of the bill. The Senate will probably reject it.
A pension-reform bill is also in limbo. Under it, workers who earn up to 2.3 times the minimum wage—or around $750 per month—would have been obliged to pay their contributions into the state system. Higher earners would have been able to put the balance in a private fund. The bill was meant to come into force on July 1st. But on June 18th the constitutional court sent it back to Congress after opposition lawmakers said that the government had rammed it through Congress without adequate time for debate.
Mr Petro's biggest success came on June 20th, when lawmakers approved a modified version of his labour reform. Senators had previously rejected it twice, but were cowed after Mr Petro decreed—and then withdrew—a referendum on it. The reform will increase the overtime premium on Sundays and holidays to 100% of a worker's salary, up from 75% today. It forces firms to contribute more to gig workers' pensions and health care, and to fully cover their insurance. This 'restores rights to Colombian workers,' says Juan Pablo Lopez, a left-wing activist who describes current labour laws as 'feudal'.
Fedesarrollo, a think-tank in Bogotá, the capital, reckons that the reform will raise the cost of hiring by up to 15%. Small businesses and firms in security and retail that rely heavily on night shifts will be hardest hit. They could fire employees, pushing even more Colombians into the black market, where about 60% of workers already toil. 'You can't talk about improving conditions for workers if at the same time you discourage entrepreneurs,' says Gabriel Jaime Vallejo of the Democratic Centre, a right-wing party.
Making matters worse, the government is running out of fiscal space to implement its agenda. On June 13th Germán Ávila, the finance minister, froze a legal limit on state spending and borrowing for three years. That will tip the deficit over 7% of GDP this year, up from 6.7% last year.
'Total Peace' looks battered. On June 7th Miguel Uribe, a right-wing senator who had announced that he would run in next year's presidential election, was shot in the head in Bogotá and remains in critical condition. Days later armed groups killed at least seven people in and around Cali, the third-largest city. 'We made a lot of sacrifices so that Petro could become president,' says a local leader from Catatumbo, a violent region. Now he fears his efforts were in vain. In January he was forced to leave his home due to conflict.
All this would be enough trouble for any administration. But Mr Petro's unstable character compounds problems. He often rants on X, formerly Twitter, and has compared his critics to slave owners and Nazis. Since coming to power he has shaken up his cabinet four times, nominating over 50 ministers. In April his former foreign minister accused him of taking drugs (Mr Petro denies the allegations and says he is being slandered).
These setbacks have led Mr Petro to embrace a dangerous idea. On June 20th he announced that he would include a vote on whether to call a constituent assembly in next year's general elections. Past presidents have amended the constitution from 1991, which enshrines many social rights. Yet Mr Petro's proposal to call an assembly to rewrite the charter is radical, and his intentions are worryingly vague.
Critics fear that the president is trying to enshrine in the constitution what he has been unable to pass in Congress. Mr Petro's approval ratings, at around a third, are low, though not unusual by Colombian standards. He is ineligible for re-election and has no clear heir. Instead, he believes that the pueblo will save his legacy.
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