 Welcome to Latin American Directions. My name is Nicholas Souzman from Bogota, Colombia. And I have the pleasure to have as our next guest in this Colombian election 2022 series, we have Alvaro Salgado, a lawyer and political analyst. Alvaro, thank you so much for being here with us. Well, thank you for inviting me, Nicholas. I'm really glad to sharing this space with you to give my opinion regarding Colombian politics and its current situation. Right, Alvaro, we've had a couple of guests over the last couple of weeks to discuss this election. I just thought it was worth taking some time to discuss it because it's atypical, right? I mentioned in the last shows that I thought I would never see if we're good or bad. I left government in our country and then it happened. And our last two guests, they wouldn't say they were speaking in favor of the new government, but they were optimistic to some degree. One from the left perspective, of course, and the other one from the woman's rights perspective, not precisely because of Petro, but because of the movements that joined him in government. Well, when we continue to see the other side of the coin with you and another guest next time, I would say you're a person that leans to the center of the political spectrum to some degree. And I would just like to have a walk through the election, first seeing how you see the election, why they won, what happened this time that didn't happen before. And then we will move on, well, with recent appointments the first weeks and today, precisely we have the inauguration of the new Congress, right? Just for the guest's references, this week we have the Colombian independence, right? Which is the day where the Congress period starts. So Alvaro, just to start, what do you think about the election? What do you think happened this time that made Petro win? And why, what did he do differently this time that he didn't do the previous times he ran for president? Yes, well, first and foremost, I consider that this election speaks really, really good of the Colombian democratic system. We Colombians can be counted in the fortunate one on having a great and solid and transparent and really representing democratic system. So I think that's a really important point in our favor. Well, it's no little thing that we're currently right now experiencing a change in the political spectrum that is gonna govern the country. We are leaving behind 20 years of Alvaro Uribe's political project and we are entering in a government that is the current opposition. So first thing I wanna highlight is the solid democratic system that Columbia has right now that allows it to shift power, to pass the baton in a peaceful Republican democratic way to an opposition government, to a left president and leaving behind 20 years of Alvaro Uribe's project in the country. Being said that and having that in mind, I consider that of course Gustavo Petro's victory is a really important and major political change in Colombian political tradition. We've never had a left government in the country and that represents a lot, represents a lot for a lot of people, especially poor people, especially my noise that are currently being discriminated against. However, I consider that Gustavo Petro has not won with the majority of the votes he wanted to want to won or he needed to have a strong, solid government these next four years. He did won, he of course is the largest and most voted president in history in Colombia, but the country right now is literally divided in half. There's 10 million people that do not believe in Gustavo Petro that rejects his political project, that he's scared and remains acceptic of what his government is going to bring to the country and there's exactly 10 million people also that believe and support the change he's right now trying to implement in the country. So I think that what we have seen in these relations is a deeply and profoundly divided country and that the government needs to know that and it needs to start governing the country with that president in mind, that they do not have a strong wide margin to govern the country. The country is split in half and he should bear that in mind when he sits to govern this next month. Okay, Alvaro. So my next question is about that change, right? There's hope, I would say, and I couldn't avoid noticing that you quoted the change, right? And I think there's a valid question about that change if it's truly the change, well, that the new government portrays but also the change that the people are expecting. What can you say about that? What's your opinion on this change, this question? Yeah, I think it's difficult because it's weird and the left project that Mustafa Petro currently is proposing, it's radically different from the one other leftist presidents have proposed in Latin America. He's currently making alliances with the traditional politicians that have ruled the country over 200 years. He right now has in his government coalition people from the Liberal Party, people from the Cambio Radical Party, which are politicians that have traditionally been in the government coalitions of the right governments that have ruled Colombia over the last 50 years. So it's weird, it's funny. I think that change, discourse or the change speech that Mustafa Petro government wants to implement is that it's basically propaganda, it's basically political marketing working its way out. I feel that there's not gonna be anything different that what we've seen in the country. We're gonna see the government giving the politicians bureaucracy, we're gonna see the government giving the politicians money. Yeah, basically the exact same thing that all politicians have done. I feel that Mustafa Petro is gonna do. So the change speech that he won the presidency with I think is just that and a speech and he's gonna use it to boost his popularity, to boost the image of his government, but it's not actual change. He has been aligned or he has been making alliances with the traditional politicians that have always ruled the country. A lot of his victory actually, he owns them for that. He owns them for the 10.5 million votes he got in this election because with those politicians with his traditional ways of making politics that allowed Mustafa Petro to be president right now. So he's in a really, really, really huge depth with them and he needs to pay. Right, and beyond the alliances in terms of the policies he's proposing, do you think there's gonna be any change? Well, yes, of course. Any change in benefit of the population he allegedly represents? It's difficult. He has a really, really ambitious agenda and I think four years are not gonna be enough. He's gonna spend all his political capital trying to approve the tax reform that the country needs right now and that's gonna be politically expensive to him. I think and I hope and I want that we can see changes in major policies that the country needs like a change in the work policies, a change in many different areas. For example, maybe we need to change and reform and make improvements in our justice branch and that's something the country needs. But he has a really ambitious program that he has already started to not deliver because well, you can change a whole country in four years, that's the reality. So I think he's gonna make maybe two or three grade and major policy changes, but he's gonna spend his political capital, a lot of his political capital is gonna be spent in the tax reform the country needs and that's gonna be really expensive for him. Right. Right and now let's speak about the myths or the fears or the realities that the opposition and even some sectors from the center feel regarding, regarding Pedro, what can you mention about that? Which ones are true, which ones are false? Which are the fears that you think are valid or the mayor concerns? Well, I speak for myself here. I have always considered myself to be a really democratic person. I don't like personalistic political projects. I think whether they come for the far right or from the far left, the personalization and this is having politics based upon people and not institutions and ideas is really harmful. It's really harmful for the strongest democracies in the world, such as the United States. And it's even harmful for weak or developing democracies such as the Colombian one. So I think one of the biggest fears and one of the greatest dangers if we could call it like that of a Pedro presidency is that the country and the politics, it's gonna be personalized. It's gonna have everything. It's gonna turn around him. Everything is gonna move around him and he's gonna be basically almost a monarch ruling over the country. That's a really, really important concern I have as a citizen, as a person that did not vote for Gustavo Petro for that specific reason. I didn't identify myself with the Petro project because of his personalistic, mellow, ways of developing and delivering in politics. And second point I consider is important to having into account is that there is no actual opposition. We don't have a strong leader that can lead that opposition, that can be the one that from Congress delivers the battles against the government and that the people believe. The only opposition Gustavo Petro has right now is Alvaro Río and his minions. And that group of people have ruled over the country for more than 20 years and they are completely, they are lacking credibility amongst the Colombian people. So there's no opposition at all. There's no strong opposition leader and without a strong opposition, there's no democracy. So I think we're probably going to see what happened when Alvaro Río got to power 20 years ago, a highly, highly personalistic political project taking over the institutions with a really, really weak and really, really poorly accredited opposition amongst the people, amongst the opinion. And that's gonna really put the Colombian institution into a lot of pressure. Right, right. Alvaro, another fear that is widely mentioned about Petro and the left in general is repeating the story of Venezuela mainly, but also other left-sided governments in the region for any reason. My question to you is, is this valid? Is this a real fear? How do you see that and how Petro is similar or different from other left leaders in the region? Well, basically, I think the Venezuelan fear and the Venezuelan monster, it's out of order right now. The Venezuelan case is a really unique case that happening in a really specific circumstances upon which a person took over and hijacked the institutions of a country and basically took that country to a system failure and to a dis-institutionalization process. But I think Gustavo Petro is gonna be kind of like a mix of, or he wants to be like Luis Ignacio Lula Silva of Brazil, that's his major goal, but I think he's gonna end up being like a Rafael Correa and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Ecuador's president and Mexico's president. He's gonna be a really populist leftist leader. He's going to catch every single fight with the press. He's gonna try to attack free press. He's gonna try to repress or to censor those journalists that are uncomfortable to his government, such as Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is doing in Mexico and such as Rafael Correa in Ecuador, in which he actually got into a judicial fight with the press. And economically speaking, I think that the greatest danger that Colombia is facing right now is becoming Argentina. We are at a really, really huge risk that the policies of Gustavo Petro become Colombia's economy in an Argentinian economy, economy are really similar way of managing the economy. And that's why it's so important that the central bank remains independent. For me, and then again, I'm speaking for myself, if we as Colombians after these next four years, we can say that he didn't touch the central bank independence and that he didn't try to reform the constitution, I feel that we can give ourselves for fortunate in that moment. Those are the two red lines that I think this government wants to cross. And if they do, the country is at a huge risk of failing and of a personalistic project that destroys institutions. Right. But now let's speak about appointments and his attitude after victory, right? So after victory, he gave a speech that I would consider spoke mainly to his supporters, not to the country. He addressed, of course, many issues, but he spoke to his supporters, which I think is very consistent with his campaign of representing those who were not represented before. Right. But that's the victory speech. And then you're starting to build your government, starting to build alliances, trying to get Congress to work with you, starting appointing the ministers, the leads of the main administrative agencies. What's your opinion on this, on this appointment so far? Well, I don't know. I see Gustavo Petro as the two-man face. Yeah, he's trying to appoint and to get together a government really, really based on technical people, upon people that can bring some calm to the markets in the economic aspect, and really technical people in other ministries, such as Alejandro Gaviria in the Ministry of Education. What I consider is going to happen is that for the first year, he's going to maintain these technical ministries and these liberal people in the ministries, but he's going to start fighting against them. He's going to start having some clashes with them, because these are people that are not going to be easily influenced by him. And when these people do not do what he said, he told them to do, he tells them to do, he's going to be really, really mad and he's not going to like that. So I consider them. These appointments he has made are really technical. Some of them are kind of like looked with a good view in the public side, but definitely I consider that they're not going to last in the Gustavo Petro government. I consider, for example, Alejandro Gaviria, especially he's a really technical person. He did a good job when he was in the health ministry, and right now he's going to be education ministry, but I think he's going to have really, really great clashes with these people, and they're not going to last in his government definitely. Right. Just to go a bit more in detail about that, you're not going to last because of the lack of alignment with the policies or because of the president's temper and personality. I think that for the Colombian audience, this can be perhaps clear, but not for a wider audience, right? Yeah, basically I consider that they're not going to last and they're going to have a little bit of a touch with the president because of what he represents. He represents a personalistic project in politics. He represents himself. That's the main goal, and he wants to do what works for him, and he has a really, really intense temperament. He was Bogotá's mayor, and some people said, some people that were able to work with him, that he doesn't like criticism, that he likes the things done the way he likes them to be done, and sometimes that's going to clash with the good benefit of the country, with the good interests of the country, and I think those ministries, those ministers are going to be really in constant friction with whether to appease the president or to get the president happy, or to really do what needs to be done. So yeah, he's a really difficult person. He likes things done the way he likes them to be done, and I think that's going to clash with the carbon ministries he has already appointed in government. Right, and now let's speak about another part of his inner circle, or of his cabinet or his surroundings. So a very important character for the election was Francia Marquez, his vice president, and women, women, social leader, Afro-descendant, and who gathered him the support of, well, Afro-descendant groups, feminist groups, popular groups, and he has several people from this type of movements in his government, which is not bad, but as you consider this as a personalistic process, joining all of these intentions can be a bit contradictory with that type of project, right? How do you think this is going to look like in his government? What do you think is going to be the role of the vice president and how is going to be the relationship of Petra as well with these groups that trusted him as the change, and then perhaps that doesn't happen because it's not feasible or it doesn't align with what he wants or something like that? Well, three main aspects to answer your question, Nicolas. First, I consider the appointment or the election of Francia Marquez as vice president as one of the most important and symbolic victories Black people in Colombia have had. Black people in Colombia are one of the greatest and most historically marginalized population in the country. They are the poorest among the poorest populations in the country. So I think Colombia did actually change appointing Francia Marquez as vice president. It's symbolic. It represents a different new country with different greater needs of change, of social mobilization. So I think it's really important and symbolic that we can have a Black woman as vice president in the country, but also a woman that is a social leader, a social activist and a victim of the Colombian conflict. So it's really symbolic. Having that established, I consider she is basically a symbol. She doesn't have a really, really important weight in the Gustavo Petro government. There's even some voices that said that they don't have a good relationship amongst between them. They don't like each other. They have really strong fights during the campaign. And there's a fraction, there's a fracture in the relation. She is going to be appointing a quality minister. That's a new ministry that the government is going to create. But she is a person that does not know the government as a whole. She has never been appointed to any kind of public office. And I think that's going to be a challenge to her. But yeah, I think it can become a problem to Gustavo Petro. She is going to be a really uncomfortable voice to the government. She is going to speak and make uncomfortable interventions during these four years. And she's going to become an obstacle to Gustavo Petro and a low point in his government. And lastly, I consider that he has already started failing those kind of groups that took him to the presidency. And the best example is the Ministry of Education. The Colombian Education Union, called FECOLE, was a really, really important key union that put Gustavo Petro in the presidency. And they asked him for them to be the ones that controlled the Ministry of Education. And he didn't deliver the promise to them. So he already started to not delivering his promises to those social groups that took him to power. So I think that's going to be a really, really low point in his government. He's going to start failing those people that actually took him to power. And he's going to need to start playing the real politics. He's going to start playing the real politics when you're in power and when you are the one are managing the country. So he's going to fail out of those people. Right, Alvaro, what's your, I don't know, key message you would like to give to our audience as a final message and to close our show. We know these personalistic projects as you define them are not foreign to the US, perhaps not a left-sided one, but a right-sided one. And for you, that's the main concern. I haven't heard that you have an issue with the fact that he's from the left. More about his personalistic issue. So what would you leave as last message to our audience and last message? Basically that we Colombians have an important work and is to protect our democracy and our institutions from personalistic projects. I think that's a task that remains for our whole continent and perhaps the world to keep our, well, this Western atmosphere in the democracies. Alvaro Salgado, thank you very much. And we will continue with the last episode of our series in a couple of weeks. Thank you so much. 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. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.