 Welcome back to Latin American Directions. My name is Nicolas Susman from the wonderful city of Bogota, Colombia. And today we have a stellar guest, Álvaro José Salgado. Álvaro is a Colombian lawyer. He has participated and supported several political campaigns for Congress and the President's Office in Colombia. And now he exercises in his free time as political analyst. Álvaro, thank you so much for being here. And welcome to Latin American Directions. Hello, Nicolas. It's a pleasure to be here. My name is Álvaro Salgado. As Nicolas said, I have worked previously in several campaigns in the Congress on the presidency. Well, thanks for being here. And let's start. Great. Álvaro, at the beginning of this month, we held our legislative elections, I would say, in a very complicated and uncertain political context. Colombia, for as far as I remember, perhaps the last 10 years has been very polarized. But now is the first time we see that the left has a significant outcome, a significant victory, even in the legislative elections. What could you tell us about that? Well, I think sadly the country has come to a really complex situation in the current elections. I think it's not because of the left had a successful result in the Congress elections we held two weeks ago, but rather because the people and the country is going and is buying the populism speech that took over the United States, whether it is from the right or whether it is from the left. We are currently under a populist right government, which is the government of Iwan Duque and Analvaro Ribre, previous president. And the country is right now tired of the right populist speech, the right populist poor results in economy in the social challenges that the country has and is looking over another populist speech that have been able to interpretate and have been able to listen to the people's needs. And sadly, the country is right now wanting to more populism but from another ideological aspect. And I think that's the risk of the situation. It's not that the left have obtained good results in the election rather than the country is wanting more populism and deep to deep in that dangerous road for democracy. Right, Analvaro, in last shows and I think that is something that we've seen all our region is this speech about left and right. And with several guests, we have discussed that maybe that is not the best categories to interpret the region, right? And to interpret politics, economics in the region. What do you say about that? Regarding the left and the right speech, I think that's an ideology or a speech we need in the region to overcome in order to set our priorities straight regarding what kind of society do we want? Do we want a society that hugs the principles of democracy, the principles of law and order? Or do we want a democracy that hugs the principles of populism, of personalism in the political arena? And this institutionalization of the countries we've seen through the region, political projects such as the Hugo Chavez project in Venezuela or the Kirchner project in Argentina that have turned not into an institutionalized democratic left project rather than a populist left self-centered project that have broken law and order, broken economy in their countries, all just to satisfy the leaders' ego and the leaders' style and the leaders' self-given truth. Right. And taking that self-centered style of politics, let's speak about perhaps the two or the three main candidates that we see here, Federico Gutiérrez Fico from the right, Gustavo Petro from the left, and I will let you choose the one you like from the center. Tell us a bit about that, how you see the pros and the cons, the risks of each one of them. Perfect. Well, starting with Federico Gutiérrez, we might say he is the candidate of the same government and the same political project. It has ruled Colombia over 20 years. So Federico Gutiérrez is basically more of the same that people is tired of. It's more of the same right authoritarianism, more of the same improvisation and inexperience that we have lived through this current president. And of course, it embraces a broken speech of defending freedoms and liberties only when it benefits the ideological aspects of the right. For example, in the Federico Gutiérrez case, all the campaign he's doing right now is defending liberties. But when he's asked about LGBTQ communities' liberties, women's rights and women's liberties, his positions are sadly the same positions that we've seen during 20 years in the Colombian government, positions of restriction of liberties, positions of discrimination. On the left, and the man of the hour, if we might say it, is Gustavo Petro, the left candidate, he was Bogotá's mayor, and then he run for president. This is, I think, his third time running for president. He started as an institutionalized democratic, good intention left, proposing the country back in 2005, maybe with the Polo Democrático Alternativo political party, a different way of governing, respecting law. However, he's a self-centered person, a very authoritarian person, and close people to his Bogotá government say that. They even couldn't work with him in the Bogotá government because he's a self-centered, authoritarian person that likes that things are done his way and his way only. He, of course, has seen, and I think his strategy to win the presidency right now is really based on the Andrés Manuel López Obrador's strategy in Mexico. He's standing on a populist base. He's talking about breaking with the central back independence. He's talking about making a national constitutional assembly in order to change everything, which, of course, it sets a really, really high risk to the Colombian economy of failing into the same wrong practices that Argentina has implemented and that have them in this, basically, deficit. So there's a risk there to economy. There's a risk there to the institutionalization of Colombia that we have struggled to get. And in the center, sadly, I think is Sergio Fajardo, the former mayor of Medellin, the second largest city in Colombia. He was really, really an important campaign back in 2018. He was seen as hope among young voters, among independent voters, among those that have democracy and institutions and liberties as the main pillars of the country. But sadly, his project has failed totally in these elections. His speech hasn't been able to connect with people. He's not interpreting the needs of people, the rage that people have after COVID, after being poor, after having to starve because they have no work. So sadly, his project is failing right now. His proposals to the country of a democratic institutionalized transition and change are not connecting with people because people is angry at people. One, a radical change that led them to get out of poverty. That led them to get a job. And he is the third option to the presidency. But I think it's really hard that he actually can win the election. Right. Right. And well, I think the key question's here. And I think we could take it from what you're saying. But who do you think will win the election? Well, I mean, we have seen the Congress results. But basically, Gustavo Petro and the Pacto Historico, his new political platform, they have taken the majority of the Congress. They have taken 20 senators and around 30 Congress and 30 representatives. That's a huge, huge, huge news in Colombia because it's the first time an alternative force gets that many votes and gets that many seats in Congress. And I think the only way Gustavo Petro can be president is if he goes to the second round of the elections with Federico Gutiérrez, that is the candidate of the current government. In other scenarios, such as Sergio Fajardo, I think Sergio Fajardo will win the presidency. But for me, it's practically a given that Gustavo Petro is going to be the next president of Colombia. Right. And what could we expect from that presidency? Well, it's really hard to answer that question because I think the presidency of Gustavo Petro is basically jumping to the unknown. We don't know what's going to, it wouldn't know if our democracy, if our institutions are going to resist and are going to stand against less populist. We have solid institutions, more solid than what Venezuela had back when Uruguay Chávez rose to power. But I think we can expect a government such as the Andres Manuel López Oroz government in Mexico, a government that is based upon media and opinion hits and based upon populist speeches about the people and the poor people and the needs of the people and those who are the least benefits of the society. And he's going to write up his government standing on that platform of populism. And he's going to have really, really bad relations with the press. He's going to constantly attack freedom of speech and freedom of press. And he's going to constantly attack Congress on its political control duty that is awarded in the Constitution. Right. As you were saying that, I just remembered something that many people said four years ago, anticipating what a bad government would it be to have Iván Duque, who was running back then against Gustavo Petra. And they said that Petra was not as bad as Duque because he would not have governability because the Congress is not on his side and so on. Do you think we could make the same argument now as we did four years regarding that situation? Well, regarding the governability Gustavo Petra will have, I think, well, you know, the Colombian Congress is a Congress that is it can easily be swift through different bureaucratic gifts the president offers to the congressman. So yeah, I think he might have a chance of creating that governability using the same old practices as politicians he rejects do. So yeah, I think he's going to have some governability at the beginning maybe using exactly the same practices that the establishment right now uses to get the governability. And that's, of course, really cynical of his part because he's supposedly running against that old practices and running against the establishment. Right. Well, maybe this is a complex question. We can split it as you want. But at least from my perception, my experience, Colombia is a traditionally right being optimistic center right country. But I would say that right country. And now we are seeing a leftist president win. That is something I would like to ask you about, what changed. The other thing is not only about the population, right? Because we know that the Colombian politics, and this is a bit of background for the audience, as you say, do not depend on citizen opinion, right? It depends on what the parties are able to do. And we see, or I think maybe Petru is doing something different this time than he did in the past, that is actually getting him to win. So beyond the change and the discontempting people that you already mentioned that people are all tired and just want the change, even if the change is this guy who was not liked and is not liked by a significant amount of the population. How can we explain that he's winning right now? What is he doing right now that is different? And how will that impact his future government if he's elected? Yeah, I will divide it into two important points. The first is the COVID happened. COVID happened and COVID led half of the country in under the line of poverty. That's something we need to take into account, according to official data. Half of the country is under the line of poverty after COVID. We have unemployment backing two digits. And that, of course, swift the people's opinion towards the change. Yes, Colombia has been a traditionally right country in elections and in politics. But when you have half of the people in poverty unemployment backing two digits and a government that doesn't know how to execute a successful public policy, the people's opinion change on that side. And the other side is a strategic decision in the Gustavo Petro's political campaign. He finally accepted that there's no way he can get to the presidency if he doesn't use the traditional methods the establishment have used to get to the presidency. That means making alliances with local political leaders that can buy votes, that can get people to vote on their not-that-legal offers. And he took that decision and he is defending that decision and he is defending that decision through the argument that if we want to change Colombia, we need to make an agreement with everyone. And that implies agreeing with those that uses not-that-legal methods to get a political power. So basically, Gustavo Petro took that decision back when he started his 2022 campaign and he realized that there's no way someone can get to the Colombian presidency with only with the opinion vote. If you know what I mean with the concept, with the opinion of the people, he needs the strength of traditional politicians to get to the presidency. Right. And just playing a bit of devil's advocate on that argument, if he's making alliances and concessions to traditional political forces, wouldn't that imply that he also has to moderate or at least, I don't know, be a bit flexible on his government plant in the reforms he wants to do to be able to comply what he promised to these parties or how does that work in terms of governability? Well, the traditional political parties in Colombia and the traditional politicians in Colombia are everything but ideologically bound. So basically, his effort right now to getting this political tradition or this political parties and this traditional politicians is based upon how many bureaucratic can he give to those politicians when he is president. These agreements are not based upon ideology. These agreements are not based upon, yeah, the most democratic limits or democratic red lines. It's 100% based on bureaucracy. It's 100% based on money and, yeah, clientelistic structures. So I don't think he has to make that much of an effort to moderate his speech to get the political establishment into his campaign because the Colombian political establishment is everything as I told you but ideologically bound. Right, right, and now let's turn to the fear everyone has, right, and let's, I think let's do just to close two exercises. The first one, let's compare Petro to other left leaders in the region, going from Maduro and Ortega to Boric in Chile who we were discussing a couple of weeks ago and we think is if he's successful to be a very interesting president for the left in the region, that would be the first one. And then let's compare him to other personnalistic leaders in the region like Bolsonaro, Maduro himself, Ortega, Donald Trump to see similarities and differences. So if you want, let's start with the left leaders, the ones you want. Yeah, well, basically everything, everyone here and the strategy against Petro have been scaring people on how we're gonna become Venezuela if we electing president. I think that's far from happening. We don't have the resources Venezuela had when Obama chose to power. We have a more strong institutions to fight and to fight Gustavo Petro and to fight the government based upon populist idea. And we've seen it with Iván Duque and we've seen it with Alvaro Ríez who wanted to re-elect for a second time. The constitutional court of justice basically stopped his intentions of a second re-election. So my fear is not Venezuela. I will direct my fear more to other leftists more to Argentina, economically speaking, but comparing Gustavo Petro to other Latin American regions. Well, I think Gustavo Petro, and I hope I'm not wrong, is not gonna become Ortega or Maduro. I think he's gonna become more like a Bolsonaro, Andrés Manuel López Obrador style, a personalistic populist self-centered leader that wants attention and that thinks that governing a country means having high rates of approval. And I think that's gonna be his way of governing Colombia. It's gonna hit really hard on democracy as the Alvaro Ríez government hit. Well, we were able to stand up after the Alvaro Ríez government but democracy was really, really hurt when he left power. But I think he's not gonna be the Nichelan president, I'm sorry, I forgot his name. Boric, yeah. He's not gonna be Boric, I think Boric is a new left, a more democratic left, a less ideological and more practical. And Gustavo Petro is a really, really strong ideological dogmatic person. So I think he's gonna be more populist by the Donald Trump, by the Bolsonaro or the Andrés Manuel López Obrador side, rather than a left more pragmatic and more democratic of, for example, I don't know, Michel Bachelet or Boric, we hope. Right. Right. And now let's talk about alternatives to defeating him, right? Is there any way to defeat Petro at this moment in the campaign? Yes, we have a really, really remote possibility and that possibility is embodied into people. I like one better than the other and that's Sergio Fajardo, which we just spoke about, a more institutionalized change that the country needs. If Sergio Fajardo can list his campaign and can begin to talk to people and can begin to interpret people's needs, he might be able to go to the second round with Gustavo Petro and defeat him because the left center and the right center will vote Sergio Fajardo. If Gustavo Petro goes to the second round of elections with Federico Gutiérrez, he will win because the left center won't vote for Federico Gutiérrez because he is the candidate of the current government and he needs those votes. And the third person I think can defeat Gustavo Petro and I think there are also populists, more for the Trump side, Israel Fernandez, the former Santander's department governor. He has shown to be a populist on an anti-corruption speech that is really empty, but it's a speech that people get really easy because people are really tired, people are really tired of corruption. I think those are the three main persons yeah, Gustavo Petro is running against and I think Sergio Fajardo and Rodolfo Fernandez can defeat Gustavo Petro. Right, right. And let's speak a bit about alliances, right? Here we have not two, not three, but I don't know it's like seven presidential candidates at the moment. Do you anticipate any alliance before the first round of elections? Well, I mean, there should be any alliances like for example, Ingrid de Tancourt, the former victim of FARC and former senator who is running for president, but he has no chance. I think she might support Sergio Fajardo, but I mean, she will bring what, 100,000 votes. That's not enough to win a presidency. But as things are by now, I think there are gonna be not major alliances. Maybe the liberal party has the presidency on their hands. Cesar Gaviria, former Colombian president, which is the director of the liberal party, has the keys to the presidency and he's going to need to make a decision of whether he supports Gustavo Petro or Federico Gutiérrez to the presidency and that's gonna define a lot of things because of the amount of political capital he has right now. Right, and some speculation here. How do you think he's gonna play his cards? It depends on what he can get from the candidates. It depends on how much power he can accumulate from supporting Federico Gutiérrez or Gustavo Petro. I think he's gonna end up supporting Gustavo Petro. Right, and maybe the last question, looking into the future, looking into the future, what do you think will be the priorities of any government that wins this election? Yeah, yeah, go ahead. Yeah, I will say three important points. First, boosting the economy. We are on a key moment. We are growing economically, but there's gonna be economic crisis and we need to have a solid economy to confront the crisis. Second, deepen the peace agreements that Juan Manuel Santos signed back in 2016 and that goes to implementing a selfful security policy in Colombia. And third, solving unemployment and poverty. I think those three main aspects are the one that the next Colombian government need to focus on and that goes through a process of deep reforms and deep change in the Congress that I think Gustavo Petro is not gonna be able to achieve. And Gutiérrez? I don't know, I think he will not have enough will to make them. He doesn't want things to change as they should be changing. And Gustavo Petro presents a really radical change that is not good for the country. Right, and maybe the last question. How do you think either outcome would impact our relationship with the United States and what is the role the United States will play? I think it depends on the next United States government. If we have a Republican populist back with Donald Trump, I think he's gonna be best friends with Gustavo Petro as Andrés Manuel López Oroz or was with Donald Trump. I think the relationship with the United States is gonna be really key on the business and economic issues. If he's a democratic, liberal president, he's gonna hit really hard with Gustavo Petro in really, really different aspects. Right, Alvaro, one last closing remark she would like to make for the US people, for the audience, for the Colombian people. Is it just your space to make a closing statement for our viewers to think for the next two weeks? Yes, basically, and I think I speak for the whole world. I think right now we are in a moment where populism is risking liberties, is risking freedom and is risking democracy. And we, in Colombia and the United States, we need to be strong and defend democracy and defend freedom at all costs because we have really struggled to get where we are right now. Thank you so much. I think that goes in the line of the closing remarks of our previous guests. So it starts to build up. This was Latin American Directions. Alvaro Sargado, thank you so much and we'll keep an eye on the election and perhaps we'll have you back after the- Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, everyone and I'll see you in two weeks. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. 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