By Manuel Rueda | Related Press
BOGOTA, Colombia — Colombia’s first leftist president will probably be sworn into workplace Sunday, promising to battle inequality and heralding a turning level within the historical past of a rustic haunted by a protracted conflict between the federal government and guerrilla teams.
Sen. Gustavo Petro, a former member of Colombia’s M-19 guerrilla group, received the presidential election in June by beating conservative events that supplied average adjustments to the market-friendly economic system, however failed to attach with voters annoyed by rising poverty and violence in opposition to human rights leaders and environmental teams in rural areas.
Petro is a part of a rising group of leftist politicians and political outsiders who've been profitable elections in Latin America for the reason that pandemic broke out and harm incumbents who struggled with its financial aftershocks.
The ex-rebel’s victory was additionally distinctive for Colombia, the place voters had been traditionally reluctant to again leftist politicians who have been typically accused of being smooth on crime or allied with guerrillas.
A 2016 peace deal between Colombia’s authorities and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia turned a lot of the main focus of voters away from the violent conflicts taking part in out in rural areas and gave prominence to issues like poverty and corruption, fueling the recognition of leftist events in nationwide elections.
Petro, 62, has promised to deal with Colombia’s social and financial inequalities by boosting spending on anti-poverty packages and growing funding in rural areas. He has described U.S.-led antinarcotics insurance policies, such because the pressured eradication of unlawful coca crops, as a “massive failure.” However he has mentioned he wish to work with Washington “as equals,” constructing schemes to fight local weather change or deliver infrastructure to rural areas the place many farmers say coca leaves are the one viable crop.
Petro additionally shaped alliances with environmentalists throughout his presidential marketing campaign and has promised to show Colombia right into a “international powerhouse for all times” by slowing deforestation and taking steps to scale back the nation’s reliance on fossil fuels.
The incoming president has mentioned Colombia will cease granting new licenses for oil exploration and can ban fracking tasks, although the oil business makes up virtually 50% of the nation’s authorized exports. He plans to finance social spending with a $10 billion a 12 months tax reform that will enhance taxes on the wealthy and put off company tax breaks.
Petro has additionally mentioned he desires to start out peace talks with remaining insurgent teams which might be at present preventing over drug routes, gold mines and different assets deserted by the FARC after their peace take care of the federal government.
“He’s obtained a really formidable agenda,” mentioned Yan Basset, a political scientist at Bogota’s Rosario College. “However he must prioritize. The danger Petro faces is that he goes after too many reforms without delay and will get nothing” by way of Colombia’s congress.
At the very least 10 heads of state are anticipated to attend Petro’s inauguration, which can happen at a big colonial-era sq. in entrance of Colombia’s Congress. Levels with reside music and massive screens may even be positioned in parks throughout Bogota’s metropolis heart in order that tens of 1000's of residents with out invites to the primary occasion can even be part of within the festivities. That’s an enormous change for Colombia the place earlier presidential inaugurations have been extra somber occasions restricted to a couple hundred VIP visitors.
“We wish the Colombian folks to be the protagonists,” Petro’s press chief, Marisol Rojas, mentioned in an announcement. “This inauguration would be the first style of a brand new type of governing, the place all types of life are revered, and the place everybody matches in.”