Tension Undermines Petro’s Call for Unity

“They should have come, instead of performing shows in other spaces that only serve to gain likes,” said the Minister of the Interior, Armando Benedetti, this Monday evening. He was referring to the heads of nine independent or opposition political parties, especially several presidential candidates who chose not to accept the Government’s invitation to a meeting on electoral guarantees this Monday, less than 48 hours after the attack that left Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay in a critical condition. This absence is just one example of how President Gustavo Petro’s call for unity, which he issued in a much-anticipated speech on the night of the crime, and was echoed by voices from all sides, has been undermined by the tension in a country facing the resurgence of the nightmare of political assassinations and a politics already steeped in high tension.

On Saturday, the political landscape was divided due to what the opposition called a presidential “coup”: a decree, criticized by jurists from all sides, to call a popular consultation when the Constitution requires Senate approval for it. Petro publicly threatened his ministers with dismissal if they did not sign, while opponents like Miguel Uribe announced denunciations against those who did. After the attack, the presidential tone changed. “What is most needed today is for all Colombians to focus with the energy of our hearts, with our desire to live, energies that together work to keep Dr. Miguel Uribe Turbay alive,” said Petro on Saturday. Everyone knows there is a political distance between the Uribe Turbay family and the Government. But it is a political distance, and politics should always be free of violence… The primary responsibility of the President of Colombia is to protect the life of his own opposition, to respect it and to ensure it lives, sparing no effort in this.” This marked a shift towards détente.

On Sunday, his chancellor, Laura Sarabia, went further. In a message rejecting violence in politics, she accepted responsibility. “I acknowledge that as a leader and international representative of this country, I have failed. Many of us have failed… This attack is a call to our responsibilities, it commits us to work tirelessly to correct our mistakes, to de-escalate the rhetoric that incites hatred and anger, publicly and privately,” she said on social media. “I propose, personally, to eradicate hatred from our language and everyday interactions,” she added. Hours later, Defense Minister Pedro Sánchez echoed her sentiments. “The invitation is for us to be responsible in our language. If we have committed any faults, justice is there for that,” he said after a security council meeting convened by Petro.

Right there, the director of the Presidency, Angie Rodríguez, called for two meetings this Monday: the previously defined session of the electoral guarantees commission at 2 PM; and at 5 PM, a meeting between the president and the spokespeople of the political parties and the presidents of the Senate and the House of Representatives. A photo of Petro with the president of Congress, the conservative Efraín Cepeda, could have been the proof of a political truce, of a possible concord: they have mutually accused each other of being undemocratic, of trying to undermine the branch of the state represented by the other. Petro even labeled Cepeda as “HP” or “neo-slaver.” The search for political peace seemed to be gaining traction.

However, on this Monday, within hours, that hope shattered. The invitation to the political summit at 5 PM disappeared from the Executive’s agenda. The previously established and more technical meeting, hosted not only by the Executive but by independent state entities like the Ombudsman or the Attorney General, was mixed with the more political call. Independent or opposition presidential candidates like Sergio Fajardo and Vicky Dávila refused to attend. Gradually, and then in a joint press conference, eight parties announced they would not attend the meeting of the guarantees commission. Petro tweeted something that upset opposition lawmakers, as they felt pointed out in the context that may have led to the attack on Uribe Turbay. “The current climate of tension arises when 8 senators from the Senate’s VII commission decided, without discussion, to sink the labor reform approved in the House of Representatives,” he wrote, referring to the legislative defeat that led to his proposed popular consultation. The tone escalated.

Evidence of this is that Benedetti, by midday, maintained a conciliatory tone similar to Petro’s on Saturday. “If the parties want to reject our invitations, we will continue to insist and will keep inviting them,” he said then. Hours later, the eight parties announced they recognized no long the Government as a guarantor of the elections and demanded the Attorney General – a former Senate secretary who reached the position thanks to Petro’s nomination – to take on that role. Benedetti radically changed his discourse. “The president has toned it down, but he committed to doing so even more. What I don’t see is that happening from the opposition because the opportunism has been great,” he noted. Although he praised the “prudence” of former president Álvaro Uribe and his party, he said that “the others” had been irresponsible.

Tension remains. This Tuesday, it is expected that the full Senate, which suspended legislative debates on Monday to hold an informal session in honor of Uribe Turbay, will resume discussions on the labor reform that revived on the same day it rejected the popular consultation, in a vote that the Government has labeled fraudulent. Former prosecutor Eduardo Montealegre, the brain behind the thesis that the Executive can call for the consultation via decree, is ready to assume the role of Minister of Justice. That “big decree” has the signature of all ministers since Saturday, Benedetti has stated, and Petro could issue it at any moment. Everything is set for a complete breakdown of the political truce brought about by the attack on Miguel Uribe Turbay.