Petro faces steep battle to deliver on his promises

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA — Colombia for the first time elected a leftist as its next president, but the slim victory is a cue that a large portion of the country rejects the ambitious proposals of Gustavo Petro, who will have to consider their concerns and negotiate with a divided Congress to be able to govern, let alone deliver on promises.

Petro, in his third attempt to win the presidency, on Sunday defeated by three percentage points another anti-establishment candidate, real estate tycoon Rodolfo Hernández, in a runoff election that became an indictment of the centrist and right-leaning politics that have long dominated the South American nation.

But the former rebel-turned-president-elect faces a steep battle to carry out the changes that his supporters want to see as the nation struggles with rising inequality, inflation and violence.

“Petro has set very high expectations from his proposals, and when he delivered his victory speech, he sort of inflated those expectations,” said Silvana Amaya, a senior analyst with the firm Control Risks.

“Therefore, there is a lot of room for disappointment if he does not meet those expectations that the people, especially the young population, have right now because they are expecting life to be absolutely different from all those social reforms that he is proposing.”

Petro has proposed pension, tax, health and agricultural reforms and changes to how Colombia fights drug cartels and other armed groups. But his coalition only has about 15% of the seats in Congress, which will force him to make deals, curb some reforms or even ditch others.

Amaya said a negotiated, scaled-down version of Petro’s proposed tax reform could be approved by Congress as the absence of one could put into question the government’s finances. But other plans will likely stall, she said. He wants the tax reform to finance social programs, including free higher education and subsidies for mothers who are heads of households.

In a nod to the resistance, Petro during his victory speech addressed the other half of Colombia that did not vote for him and proposed a “great national dialogue” that includes his staunchest opponents to achieve consensus.

“The fact that this platform took him to victory indicates that most Colombians believe that the state should take on a greater role in providing social services such as health, social security and education,” Erica Fraga, senior analyst with the Economist Intelligence Unit, a research group linked to the Economist magazine, said in a statement.