Colombian congressional and presidential elections - March 13/May 29/June 19, 2022

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Ingrid Betancourt, who supported Rodolfo in the end, has also said she would be in opposition, which is terrible news for the opposition. It is unclear whether this goes for her party as well (I feel like it will, she clearly runs the thing as her personal vanity project with no discussions allowed), but in any case this will be problematic for the party's only two congressmen: Humberto de la Calle (Senate) and Daniel Carvalho (House), who are both leaning more towards being independent.

Is it not the case that the decision is taken by the members in Congress, rather than the party as a whole? In which case there isn't a lot Betancourt could do about it if de la Calle and Carvalho don't want to be in opposition (particularly as de la Calle clearly has zero time for her since she left the Centro Esperanza coalition).

Yes and no. The declaration of being in government or opposition under the 2018 opposition statute is taken in accordance with the party's statutes - I don't know for sure, and won't figure it out, but I assume in most cases that means the decision is made by the party leadership. From Betancourt's comments, she said that the decision would be made by the party in some general assembly.

Then you have the 2005 ley de bancadas, which basically regulates caucuses (groups) in Congress and other bodies so that they act in a coordinated and disciplined manner. It appears as if the Green-Centro Esperanza coalition agreement signed by all parties at the time, including Betancourt, committed all parties to act as a single caucus in the sense of the 2005 law. Semana recently had an article saying that the coalition's 13 senators decided to declare themselves as part of the government coalition, and that this decision includes de la Calle, but I have a suspicion that our favourite far-right magazine confused the Green Alliance's official decision (taken by the party leadership) and perhaps also that of the ASI (another component of the coalition with 4 senators) with that of the coalition's incoming senatorial caucus as a whole.


Petro has revealed the names of all members of his transition team:

https://twitter.com/ricarospina/status/1541782109811089409

This may give hints as to future cabinet ministers, although transition teams seem to be a rather poor predictor of future ministers.

Prominent economist and Columbia prof José Antonio Ocampo, who served as finance minister (1996-97), director of the DNP (1994-96) and agriculture minister (1993-94), will head the transition team for finance, and is widely rumored to be the leading candidate for finance minister. Ocampo had supported Fajardo in the first round. As expected, he would be a cautious and moderate pick to reassure the markets and investors.

Retired police general William Salamanca, who had previously been announced to manage the transition with the police, will now manage the entire defence sector transition - a very sensitive spot for Petro. Salamanca is the former inspector general of the police, responsible for internally investigating the behaviour of officers, and was the one who launched a corruption investigation against former police director Gen. Oscar Atehortúa which eventually led to his dismissal in 2020.

The list also includes Alejandro Gaviria, former minister Cecilia López, outgoing Liberal senator Luis Fernando Velasco, Petro's campaign manager Alfonso Prada (a santista - he was secretary-general of the presidency under Santos from 2017 to 2018), Liberal senator Iván Agudelo (close to Daniel Quintero), former Olympian and former Afro rep. (2002-2010) María Isabel Urrutia, Iván Velásquez (of recent CICIG fame in Guatemala) and Carolina Corcho.

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Not too surprisingly, Petro announced José Antonio Ocampo as his new finance minister.

He is an acclaimed economist, currently teaching at Columbia, with a distinguished career in Colombia (mostly in the 1990s) and at the UN. Ocampo, educated at Notre Dame and Yale, served as minister of agriculture (1993-94) under César Gaviria and then as national planning director (1994-96) and minister of finance (1996-97) under Ernesto Samper. He resigned early after being appointed executive secretary of CEPAL, where he served until 2003, when Kofi Annan appointed him as UN undersecretary-general for economic and social affairs. In 2012, he was nominated by a group of developing countries as a candidate for World Bank president, but he was not supported by the Colombian government (which was focused on then vice president's Angelino Garzón's candidacy to head the ILO) and he withdrew. He was on the board of directors of the central bank, the Bank of the Republic, from 2017 to 2019, appointed by Santos.

Politically, Ocampo - though he comes from a Conservative family (he is the son of Alfonso Ocampo Londoño, health minister and education minister in the 1960s under Carlos Lleras Restrepo, and former rector of the Universidad del Valle in Cali) - was on the left of the Liberal Party in the 1990s and, in his limited political involvement this century, close to the centrist/centre-left 'alternative' politicians. This campaign, as I mentioned, he supported Fajardo and was part of Fajardo's platform/policy coordination team. Ocampo is a more 'left-leaning' economist, close to Joseph Stiglitz, but widely respected and seen as a serious and cautious pick. Unsurprisingly, his appointment has been welcomed by Fajardo and Humberto de la Calle.

In political happenings, the meeting between Uribe and Petro took place yesterday. It was quite historic, in that nobody would have predicted a mature meeting between the two just weeks ago. From what has come out of the meeting, and Uribe's press conference afterwards, it was a mature meeting with good will on both sides. Uribe appeared ready to support the government on certain issues, like poverty reduction, and was open to ongoing dialogue with the incoming government. Uribe, in any case, seems far more open-minded and well-intentioned (in appearance, at least), than he ever was with Santos: I don't doubt that Uribe dislikes Petro, but Uribe probably doesn't hold any personal grudges against him, whereas he stubbornly hates Santos until the end because he is a 'traitor'.

In any case, some of the pictures of the meeting are hilarious:

https://twitter.com/kienyke/status/1542189199994019842

Particularly this one, where Uribe looks particularly uncomfortable

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I'm intrigued by the oil phase out part of Petro's platform. First off, it's very bold (and definitely leaves "progressive" first world oil states like Norway, Scotland, Canada etc look even more hypocritical) and is almost the opposite of most of the other Pink Tide nations (Correa, Morales, AMLO, Lula, Maduro etc all being pro extraction). Is there backlash developing in working class oil areas/unions? How likely is he to push through in the face of potential cost of living increases?

[warandwar]

I'm intrigued by the oil phase out part of Petro's platform. First off, it's very bold (and definitely leaves "progressive" first world oil states like Norway, Scotland, Canada etc look even more hypocritical) and is almost the opposite of most of the other Pink Tide nations (Correa, Morales, AMLO, Lula, Maduro etc all being pro extraction). Is there backlash developing in working class oil areas/unions? How likely is he to push through in the face of potential cost of living increases?

Can't speak for the members, but the Colombian oil worker union is in favor (and generally very strong on this issue)

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I'm intrigued by the oil phase out part of Petro's platform. First off, it's very bold (and definitely leaves "progressive" first world oil states like Norway, Scotland, Canada etc look even more hypocritical) and is almost the opposite of most of the other Pink Tide nations (Correa, Morales, AMLO, Lula, Maduro etc all being pro extraction). Is there backlash developing in working class oil areas/unions? How likely is he to push through in the face of potential cost of living increases?

Yes, his energy policy is one of his boldest and most ambitious stances and is at the centre of his entire economic outlook: to abandon the post-90s neoliberal extractivist economic model and replace it by a 'productive economy' which remains rather poorly defined. It definitely sets him apart from most other Pink Tide leaders in Latin America: indeed, in his victory speech, he kind of called on the continental left to stop depending on income from resource extraction to fund social programs and the like.

The backlash will come first from investors, corporations and the oil industry lobby: his most immediate promise is to suspend all future oil exploration, as well as ban exploration and exploitation of unconventional deposits and offshore oil (and stop the outgoing government's fracking pilot projects). The plan to phase out oil, if he does go ahead with immediately ending all future oil exploration, would take 10 to 15 years.

I can't speak much to how likely he is to make huge strides in his energy transition platform - I'm not really an expert on oil and economics. On the one hand, this seems like the kind of bold and ambitious idea that Petro is famously bad at implementing (the trash collection crisis in Bogotá was a similar case, on a much smaller scale), particularly given that his energy transition and economic transformation policies are (a) still rather poorly defined (he wants to move to renewable energies, like wind and solar power, and talks a lot about how La Guajira has really strong winds, but because of Hidroituango and similar crises he is very skeptical about hydroelectricity, which is Colombia's main source of energy today), (b) would in the short-term mean lost revenues for the state and (c) depends on a lot of other ambitious promises working out (like an agrarian reform, boosting rural productivity, renegotiating free trade agreements with the US and other countries, massively increasing tourism revenues, rekindling and protecting national industry). On the other hand, it seems as if the Duque administration (which is, like all others that came before it, very pro-resource extraction) has moved to stack and lock down the board of Ecopetrol (the stock-listed oil company in which the state is the majority shareholder) and ISA (leading energy transmission company in Latin America, in which Ecopetrol now owns 51% of shares) to 'protect' them from Petro's plans. Given all this, I wouldn't be too surprised if this is one area where Petro will initially be quite cautious and conservative at first.

Most oil-producing municipalities (most of them in Meta and Casanare) in Colombia voted for Rodolfo, as they tend to be quite right-wing (uribista). Rodolfo won 52% in Puerto Gaitán, Meta (the leading oil-producing municipality), 65% in Acacías and Castilla Nueva (Meta), 68% in Aguazul (Casanare), 72% in Tauramena (Casanare), 70% in Villa Nueva (Casanare). He also won oil-producing regions in Arauca, the Magdalena Medio (like Yondó, Antioquia) and southern Cesar.

However, Petro won (as in 2018), with 60%, in Barrancabermeja (Santander), the 'oil capital' or oil port of Colombia, home to the largest oil refinery in the country (owned by Ecopetrol) as well as several oil fields (extending across the river in Yondó). Barrancabermeja has a long left-wing tradition, going all the way back to the 1930s or so when the left's weak support was concentrated in 'enclave economy'-type places like Barranca, which was able to withstand the paramilitary onslaught and massacres of the early 2000s. The main oil workers' union, the Unión Sindical Obrera (USO), is quite strong (but not as strong as it once was) in Barrancabermeja, and the USO supported Petro both this year and four years ago. During the campaign, Ecopetrol employees and contract workers claimed that the USO forced them to attend Petro campaign events.

Officially, the USO supports the energy transition model proposed by Petro, arguing that Colombia's oil reserves will run out in the near future and that Ecopetrol and the country should begin the energy transition now if it doesn't want to disappear, but they're also confident that Petro's ideas will not affect oil extraction/production in the short term. This article from 2018 explains the USO's reasons for supporting Petro better than I could - and also mentions that, in 2018, not everybody in the union was on board with supporting Petro (Fajardo, supported by the Polo at the time, had a lot of union support in 2018).

Incidentally, Barrancabermeja was one of only two municipalities won by Petro in Rodolfo's Santander, the other one being neighbouring Puerto Wilches (in the Magdalena Medio region), the location of the first fracking pilot project, which has generated a lot of local opposition which probably helped Petro (but I can't help but wonder if Rodolfo insulting the local prostitutes back in 2019 had any impact lol).

[Velasco]

Colombia's oil production reached a peak by 2014-2015 (more than 1M barrels per day) and has decreased significantly since then (742k barrels per day in Feb 2022), according to a graph I found in the page linked below.

https://tradingeconomics.com/colombia/crude-oil-production

By 2016 Colombia exported 79% of its oil production (912k barrels per day that year), but this share must have decreased alongside oil production. At this rate of decrease, I imagine Colombia would cease to be a net exporter in the near future. Oil-pumping capacity is equally or more important than oil reserves, for this capacity decreases over time making oil mining more costly. At a certain point, the capacity of extraction reaches a peak, no matter the effort and the investment displayed, so oil production reaches a plateau and then declines. This matter is very complex and technical for non-experts like me, but this is what happens in essence. Quite possibly fracking oil projects were developed as a consequence of that peak in conventional oil peoduction. However, fracking oil projects have been mostly unsuccessful outside the US, for this mining is economically ruinous and environmentally damaging. On the other hand, oil companies worldwide have defunded oil exploration drastically since 2014, for they look for profit and consider the best oil fields have been discovered already.

Diversifying economy and energy sources looks like a sensible policy (oil reserves will be still of strategic value,  otoh). Another question is the soundness of Petro's economic transition plan. He is apparently a staunch advocate of Green New Deal (aka Green Capitalism). I got from an interview with Coronell that Petro wants to build big solar and wind farms in La Guajira. Part of the electricity produced by those farms would be used to produce "green hydrogen" for export via Barranquilla (I assume mostly to the US).  The problem with photovoltaic panels and wind generators is that they need rare metals. In other words,  they are non-renewable devices that catch renewable energy. Hydro is the most reliable renewable source to date. Anyway I hope Petro is more succesful as President than he was as mayor of Bogotá

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Four more cabinet ministers have been announced:

Culture (MinCultura): Patricia Ariza (UP), 76. Poet, playwright, actress and activist. Ariza was part of the Nadaist movement in her youth, and founded the Teatro La Candelaria in Bogotá in 1966, the first alternative theatre in Colombia. She is a survivor of the genocide of the UP.

Education (MinEducación): Alejandro Gaviria, 56. More well known if you've read my posts in this thread. Economist, academic, former health minister (2012-2018), rector of the University of the Andes (2019-2021) and presidential pre-candidate in the centrist coalition. Gaviria is an acclaimed economist and academic who has worked in the private sector, public sector (DNP under Uribe's first term), academia, think tanks (Fedesarrollo) and the media. Gaviria is a very intelligent man with a strong liberal philosophy on both life (he is an atheist and has shared his experience about trying LSD) and politics - his liberalism, and his record as health minister, means he's not particularly loved by the more left-wing members of Petro's coalition (he will notably find himself in cabinet with Carolina Corcho, who is very critical of his record as health minister). But Gaviria is a pragmatic man in his politics - in contrast with Fajardo, for example. He endorsed Petro in the runoff, which was widely expected after a pre-first round interview in the FT in which he said that Colombia was sitting on a volcano and that a 'controlled explosion' under Petro was the preferable outcome. My opinion is that Gaviria is a very good choice and he most definitely has the skills and experience to be a good education minister, although his challenge will be to reconciliate his liberal vision on education with the more left-wing education program which Petro was elected on. In very random thoughts, Gaviria clearly played his cards better than anyone else in the old centrist coalition: while he is a minister, Fajardo is forever doomed to be depicted as an indecisive and apathetic guy who prefers whale watching, Galán is steering a promising party into an authoritarian family business venture and Robledo is a deranged bitter anti-petrista (Amaya is the other one who has played his cards decently: because of his political wiliness he's not going to do too badly for himself).

Agriculture (MinAgricultura): Cecilia López (ex-Liberal), 79. Veteran centre-left politician who has been in politics and public office since the late 1970s (back in the government of Julio César Turbay), serving as ambassador (1985-1988), director of the old Social Security Institute, ISS (1990-1992), environment minister (1996-1997), agriculture minister (1996-1997), national planning director (1997-1998) and Liberal senator (2006-2010). A longtime Liberal, she was a samperista in the 1990s - with a more left-wing or interventionist economic outlook, and among those who were skeptical of the rapid neoliberal economic 'opening' of the country under Gaviria's presidency. She resigned from the ISS in disagreement with the pension reform (what became Law 100, the current social security and healthcare system). She was a close ally of Ernesto Samper, defending him through the Proceso 8.000 scandal, and served in his government as minister of the environment, minister of agriculture (from which she was pushed out under pressure from the Liberal caciques of the Caribbean coast) and finally as director of the DNP. She returned to politics in the early 2000s and was elected to the Senate in 2006, and distinguished herself as one of the best opposition legislators, leading strong debates on the second Uribe administration's scandals and on issues like free trade. She unsuccessfully ran for president in 2010, but finished fourth in the 2009 Liberal primary. In 2014, she was part of the Santos government's Misión Rural, an expert group led by José Antonio Ocampo, in charge of coming up with recommendations on rural development. She supported Gustavo Petro during the 2022 campaign.

Health (MinSalud): Carolina Corcho (left), 39. A doctor (psychiatrist) and activist, she is probably the most controversial cabinet pick thus far. She is a doctor but is much more of a left-wing healthcare activist, and has been close to Petro for some time: she served in a secondary role (director of social participation in the health secretariat in Bogotá, and undersecretary for health territorial planning) under his mayoral administration. She is a longstanding critic of Colombia's mixed-market healthcare system (similar in some regards to Obamacare) and particularly the health insurance providers (EPS), which are intermediaries (and restrictive gatekeepers), arguing - like Petro - that they've turned healthcare into a business rather than a right. Corcho was critical of Alejandro Gaviria when he was Santos' health minister. She became famous during the pandemic as vice president of the Colombian Medical Federation, denouncing the working conditions of healthcare workers and being very critical of the government's pandemic response and the vaccination campaign. Uncomfortably similar to our ZeroCovid crazies, she opposed school reopenings, supported strict full lockdowns into the spring of 2021 (but hypocritically supported the protests a month later, even as cases were rising and Colombia faced its deadliest wave) and criticized the full economic reopening in November 2021. Corcho, like Petro, supports eliminating the EPS as part of a healthcare reform, so her appointment is a signal that, at least on this issue, Petro is not seeking to be as conciliatory, cautious and moderate. She is controversial because she often bases her arguments and statements on her own opinions rather than facts, even to the point of spreading disinformation or fake news (she falsely claimed that Colombia wouldn't receive vaccines from the US because the government had supported Trump). Her most famous controversy was when she basically blamed all 1.8 preventable deaths between 1998 and 2011 on the healthcare system and EPS (including, yes, homicides), for which she was criticized by researchers, Alejandro Gaviria and even the outgoing health minister Fernando Ruiz. Here is a Twitter thread by a right-leaning lawyer that went viral listing up all her controversies.

Environment (MinAmbiente): Susana Muhamad (Col. Humana). Probably the first true, longtime Petro ally appointed to cabinet so far - she is currently a city councillor in Bogotá, elected in 2019 on Colombia Humana's list, and she was secretary of the environment in Bogotá under Petro (2012-2013, 2014-2016) and briefly secretary general of his administration (2013-2014). She was also with him in his first presidential campaign back in 2010, and ran for Senate on the Decentes list in 2018 (but lost). In the city council, she has been one of the leading opponents of Claudia López, particularly on issues like police brutality. Since 2021, she is also vice president of the party Colombia Humana. She has already announced clear (but expected) stances against fracking and aerial aspersion with glyphosate.

For other portfolios, Caracol Radio revealed the likely names at this stage yesterday: https://caracol.com.co/programa/2022/07/06/noticiero_del_mediodia/1657136128_609243.html. The interior minister would unsurprisingly be Alfonso Prada, while Armando Benedetti would be Petro's private secretary (perhaps until he decides if he wants to go for mayor of Barranquilla?) and Luis Fernando Velasco will head Dapre, the presidential administrative office. The defence minister would be Mónica Cifuentes, former legal advisor to the peace process, and the justice ministry would either go to Martha Lucia Zamora (a lawyer and former magistrate who was Petro's secretary general in Bogotá) or Luis Guillermo Pérez (lawyer and currently the CNE magistrate representing the opposition since 2018). 


In party news, last week the Conservative Party elected senator Carlos Andrés Trujillo - leader of the most pro-Petro factions within the caucus and party - as the party's new president following the resignation of Omar Yepes, who had resigned in protest after 39 Conservative congressmen (led by Trujillo) announced their intention to support, or at least not oppose, the new government. Carlos Andrés Trujillo leads the dominant Conservative faction in Itagüí (suburban Medellín in the Aburrá valley) which has controlled the city for a decade now, and is also a close ally of Daniel Quintero, the ostensibly 'alternative' and 'progressive' mayor of Medellín (who was suspended during the campaign for implicitly supporting Petro). Getting increasingly strong Santos-era vibes from the Conservatives: a base and factions of the leadership which are clearly anti-government but a caucus which is predominantly pro-government. Under Santos, the Conservatives were pro-government because they got marmalade. So far, Petro hasn't given out bureaucratic quotas to traditional parties in his cabinet, although one of Trujillo's old allies/lawyer found his way into the transition team: Guillermo Reyes, former vice minister of interior and justice under Uribe (and accused of plagiarism several years ago), coordinates the transition in the justice ministry...

Perhaps it will soon be time to switch this discussion over to a general discussion thread? Not that it matters.

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Various updates:

The Liberal Party has officially announced that it will support the government. Gaviria failed to obtain any concessions from Petro, like the bureaucratic and cabinet appointments he had been asking for, although the party can always blackmail him later when he's in a weaker position. He still asserted his control over the party, managing to beat back a rebellion by some of the petrista 'rebels' in the party (led by corrupt senator Julián Bedoya). The final decision, it seems, was negotiated in part through Gaviria's son Simón, who always manages to squeeze himself in somewhere despite his lack of talent. With the Liberals, the Petro coalition has an absolute majority by the thinnest of margins in the lower house and is two seats short of one in the upper house. But if the Conservatives and the U come on board, the majority in both houses will be very comfortable. Petro clearly wants a big majority à la Santos' Unidad Nacional (2010-2017ish) rather than Duque's ragtag horsetrading in the first two years.

With the Liberals now formally in government, I feel that they will obtain the presidency of the House for the first year, as the unwritten tradition would have it. The two left-wing candidates for that spot, David Racero (Pacto) and Katherine Miranda (Green), are not withdrawing, but the other parties in Congress won't want the Pacto to hold the presidency of both houses at once. As for the Liberal that'll preside the House, there are now 5 (maybe 6?) candidates, only one of which is already a petrista. As I've said before, Roy Barreras, the quintessential political chameleon, will be president of the Senate, although Gustavo Bolívar is still mad about that and still airing his beef with Barreras publicly, which isn't a good sign for the future. Bolívar is a worthless legislator.

In last minute developments, apparently a deal splitting the presidency of the Senate has been reached:

https://twitter.com/DiegoFuerteB/status/1548077063973744643

So Pacto for the first year, Greens for the second year, Conservatives and Liberals in the third and fourth year. The first two years are when the government is most likely to have the capital to push its legislation through, while the third year is more difficult and the fourth year is a waste. Not sure what the source for the names for the three other years are, but if confirmed: Angélica Lozano would be great (Ariel Ávila meh, will need to read up the law and constitution a bit better beforehand), while Nadia Blel (daughter of a parapolítico) and Lidio García (already Senate president in 2019-20, moonlights as a vallenato singer) would be bad - although the past Congress has had the likes of Ernesto Macías, Arturo Char and Jennifer "plagiarized thesis"/"marica, ya no más" Arias...

There's another round of Betancourt vs. her two congressmen. The latter, unhappy about how Betancourt is running her party like a little dictator (and her decision to be in opposition), have formed a 'congressional committee' declaring themselves independent of the government and taken the party matter to court, asking a judge to suspend an upcoming general assembly. Betancourt has said that their decision is a 'declaration of war'. Colombia's rather Kafkaesque party laws mean that the party can hold its rebellious congressional members in a straightjacket since they would lose their seat if they resign their party membership and can only run for another party in the next election if they resign their seat one year before.

The first Invamer poll post-election (for reminders, Invamer is a regular poll carried out in the 5 big cities every few months for the last 25 years or so), Petro's favourability surges to 64% (+22) and his unfavourable collapses to 22% (-18), so it's a mighty big honeymoon (Duque never really had one). The poll also shows a (likely short-lived) burst of cautious optimism with increased trust in democracy and most institutions, a slight uptick in optimism about the country's direction and renewed hope for peace. On the other hand, it also shows that both Rodolfo (52 unfav/28 fav) and Fico (45 unfav/29 fav) are unpopular.

Fajardo's former running mate Luis Gilberto Murillo is not in cabinet after all but rather ambassador to the US, the most important and prestigious diplomatic posting. He is very qualified for this job, having lived and worked several years in the US, with political connections in DC, and even holding US citizenship until giving it up to become ambassador. Certainly more qualified than Duque's two ambassadors: the embarrassingly clownish Pacho Santos, and slimy opportunistic talentless hack Juan Carlos Pinzón.

I've written a lengthy Medium post about Petro's first month as president-elect: https://medium.com/colombian-politics-and-elections/colombian-politics-digest-i-petros-first-weeks-c569f2c0d50a

[LAKISYLVANIA]

Thank you Hash for these very insightful comments. That's very much appreciated!

I also must say that I like the Colombian model a lot, moreso than almost any other left-wing model in Latin America and potentially even Europe. I think in terms of ideology Colombia currently fits me best.

[icc]

The results of the Legislative Election are finally confirmed (though I can't see the 'normal' Cámara seats here - https://escrutinionacionalcongreso2022.registraduria.gov.co/difusion/00000000000000000000006f/2

Final list of senators elected here:
https://www.semana.com/politica/articulo/atencion-cne-declaro-la-eleccion-del-senado-conozca-como-quedo-conformado/202202/

[No War, but the War on Christmas]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-62460534

Gustavo Petro has been so based since taking office, wish we had an equivalent here in the States.

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Apologies for not keeping up with this - I was on vacation for 2 weeks until early August - but I have now written a long post about the main happenings since mid July including Petro's inauguration and cabinet: https://medium.com/colombian-politics-and-elections/colombian-politics-digest-ii-president-petro-b775be4b5028. Please read it, if you want, for a lot of details about different things.

In my impressions of Petro thus far (a week and a half into his administration), it's still largely positive but I'm starting to see the roots of future problems. On the policy front, it is quite positive: the tax reform is ambitious and largely good (could be improved or fixed in parts, but the general points are positive - eliminating all the deductions and tax breaks built in through the years for various lobbies, making income tax a bit more progressive etc.), re-establishing diplomatic ties with Venezuela is a no-brainer and a good development (even if Maduro is terrible, pretending that he isn't there is not a viable foreign policy for Colombia, and you will need him for stuff like peace with the ELN), the first hints of security policy are good (the new military leadership, talking about a big shift in drug policy) and peace talks with the ELN will be tough but is a good thing. He's already accomplished more in foreign policy/diplomacy than Duque did in four years (this is easy: Duque's foreign policy was laughably terrible, very imbecilic).

The cabinet is mostly good with some very good people who I hope will do good things (Leyva, Gaviria, Velásquez, even more petrista names like Muhamad) and but also people I'm more skeptical about (Carolina Corcho) and others who are clearly not very good (Guillermo Reyes, the Conservative quota in transport, is useless and dishonest). I know that Colombian ambassadorships are given out to talentless hacks, useless idiots and inconvenient allies, but Petro did promise to professionalize the diplomatic service... but the appointments of Camilo Romero as ambassador to Argentina and León Fredy Múñoz as ambassador to Nicaragua (ie. two stupid left-wing Greens) don't inspire confidence (I can forgive Armando Benedetti as ambassador to Venezuela since that job probably requires being held by a trusted confidante of Petro for now).

It's clear that the government's political style and operations will be much closer to Santos (i.e. pragmatic and the ends justifying the means with a good dose of 'todo vale') rather than Duque's first year (when he tried to govern without giving anything to other parties), which makes you feel a bit queasy because it involves backroom wheeling and dealing and some not so ethical bureaucratic deals and back-scratching, but that's still the way to get anything done: we've already had the Conservatives vote to ratify the Escazú agreement! You just needed to give the transportation ministry to a serial plagiarizer but whatever.

The election of the comptroller general today is dispiriting but not surprising: after criticizing past governments, particularly Duque, for coopting 'independent' control bodies to put their friends and allies, Petro has basically done the exact same thing, with his government basically orchestrating the victory of Carlos Hernán Rodríguez, their preferred candidate (at the last minute) and then putting everything in line to ensure his election with a massive majority, even including the CD. Just like in basically every past election. They criticized past governments and congresses for installing a 'contralor de bolsillo' and then did the exact same thing. They criticized the outgoing comptroller, 'Pipe' Córdoba, for being everyone's friend, and are now electing a guy who nobody knows very much about but who is very clearly another 'amigo de todos'. But this isn't surprising, that's how it's always worked out.

On the other hand, I am concerned that I am starting to see the roots of future problems, or perhaps the return of old problems in Petro. He has been slow to appoint his cabinet and even slower to appoint other people in important spots and clearly hasn't bothered to do background checks and therefore ran into avoidable problems (the continued lack of an ICT minister given that the putative appointee has a scandal, and the first head of the DNP turning out to be ineligible because of not meeting very basic constitutional requirement - he's a dual national). The transition team appeared well run but so far the government, except for the finance folks, and the presidency seem to be rather unprepared and disorganized. Petro cancelling the military promotion ceremony for the new top command was terrible optics (he can be forgiven if it's true that he had stomach pains, but his office initially said it was because of urgent meetings running late) and cannot be allowed to happen again. Petro is known for not being punctual, but he needs to change that. One hopes that this disorganization does not presage a repeat of the old problems Petro was known for in Bogotá: instability and very high turnover in his administration.

More later, until then please read my lengthy post.

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Election of the comptroller general by Congress:

Carlos Hernán Rodríguez 260 (94 S, 166 H)
Blank votes 23 (9 S, 14 H)
María Fernanda Rangel 1 (1 S)
Elsa González 1 (1 H)
Invalid vote 1 (1 S)

Read my Medium post for the long story of this telenovela. In short, however, over basically 2-3 days, the government used its power and influence to line everything up to ensure the landslide victory of their chose candidate, Carlos Hernán Rodríguez, like nearly every other government before them (except, arguably, for Duque in 2018 who didn't influence the election directly). Over this same period, María Fernanda Rangel, the putative favourite for several weeks, saw her support from congressmen evaporate entirely and, to avoid humiliation, she withdrew herself from the race on Thursday morning when she realized that she was finished.

Since 2015, the election of the comptroller general - the guy who is supposed to make sure the money is spent correctly and doesn't get stolen - is supposed to be done through a merit-based selection process but this has already been turned into a farce. This year, the outgoing Congress - dominated by the right and traditional parties - wanted to tie down the entire list of finalists before the new Congress (where the left is much stronger) had a chance to do it, which doesn't seem to be illegal but definitely goes against the spirit of the law and the constitution. However, the first list of finalists, from April, was thrown out by two courts in July, and the outgoing Congress with 4 days left rushed to make a new list of finalists. The new Congress, led by Roy Barreras and David Racero, and responding to the left's demands that the process be restarted, created a new commission to create a new list (again), which is uncharted waters legally. This new commission's new list, contrary to most speculation, ended up being very similar to the last list, with just one minor difference.

The original list from April didn't include any of the left's three favoured choices and instead included no less than 6 people who had been working for the incumbent comptroller, Carlos Felipe Córdoba, a very ambitious and cunning guy whose tenure will largely be remembered for the significant expansion of the comptroller's powers (through a 2019 constitutional reform) and the massive expansion of its payroll and bureaucratic spoils (to give jobs to the friends and pawns of the politicians that the comptroller is always friends with, even though he needs to be watching over them). Not so much for his actual ability at doing his actual job, though.

One of 'Pipe' Córdoba's preferred successors was María Fernanda Rangel, a lawyer who had previously worked for Juan Fernando Cristo and had headed some sort of 'early reaction' unit in the Contraloría. In July, Rangel emerged as the runaway favourite - by early August, the Liberals, Conservatives, CR and La U all announced their support for her candidacy and she had the votes to win. Although Rangel was initially not too badly perceived by petrismo at first, they started moving against her, led by Pacto sen. Gustavo Bolívar (who said she was a puppet of 'Pipe' Córdoba) and Green sen. Ariel Ávila (who ripped her apart in a 15 minute video exposé on YouTube, as is his style). Petro and the new government were taken aback by the four traditional parties - three of which are considered to be part of his new governing coalition - announcing their support for Rangel, and took it as an affront and a challenge. And so, from 2 weeks ago, the new government set out to defeat Rangel.

They settled on Carlos Hernán Rodríguez, a little known candidate who was included on the second list of finalists. Rodríguez is the former auditor general (2017-2019), a little-known position in charge of overseeing the comptroller - he succeeded Córdoba, and was then in charge of overseeing Córdoba (from summer 2018). He is a lawyer from the Valle del Cauca and was a departmental deputy in 2002 when the FARC kidnapped 12 deputies (11 of them were later killed in 2007). The brother of the wife of Petro's interior minister, Alfonso Prada, was among those deputies kidnapped and later killed by the FARC, so Prada and Rodríguez know each other well. He has been close to several local politicians: he served in the cabinet of Angelino Garzón (the left-ish former trade union guy who went on to be Santos' first vice president, he is a very low energy and doltish person), and was later close to former senator Juan Carlos Martínez, convicted of parapolítica and investigated for drug trafficking, and supported the 2007 gubernatorial candidacy of Juan Carlos Abadía, a controversial politician who was removed from office in 2010. Rodríguez was departmental comptroller of the Valle, and was generally well perceived for his work, and later departmental ombudsman. Still not too much is known about him but he seems to have, like Córdoba, the ability to be close to all politicians - everyone's friend: I think having friends is good, but you should not be friends with the people you must keep an eye on!

From Tuesday this week, the government's political operators, led by Prada, then started working overtime to shift the race. The Conservatives began switching on Tuesday night, once again showing how the Conservatives have become a rather close and reliable coalition partner, followed by the 16 victims' representatives who had also previously endorsed Rangel. On Wednesday, the Liberals and the U officially jumped ship as well, although César Gaviria resisted pressure for a bit, followed by the Greens, where Rangel had substantial support too. The uribista CD, in opposition, also went over to Rodríguez. By Wednesday it became very clear that Rodríguez would win and that Rangel was done. CR was the last to switch over, once it became obvious that Rangel could not win. And so, her support evaporated from 200+ promised votes to nothing, essentially over a few days.

Rodríguez won with a massive majority - 260 votes out of 286 voters: basically every party voted for him, from the ex-FARC to uribismo! Rangel got one vote - it seems to have been CR senator David Luna, who told La Silla he'd still vote for her regardless. There were 23 blank votes, a form of last-minute protest against a dispiriting election (with some steps of dubious legality): the vote is secret, although those who wanted to could announce their votes, but most of the blank votes largely came from the left and centre-left, those who actually held to their principles and didn't do what they always criticized in the past. We know Gustavo Bolívar, Jota Pe Hernández (annoying YouTuber senator now on some media-fueled crusade/frenzy to coerce every congressman to sign his bill to reduce congressmen's exorbitant salaries, if you dare question his motives he'll expose you), Jennifer Pedraza (Dignidad rep., shaping up as a pretty good left-wing critic of the government), Daniel Carvalho, Cathy Juvinao, Duvalier Sánchez, Cristian Avendaño, Susana Boreal (young new Pacto rep. who was bullied and branded a retard by all the internet sages for not knowing a procedural detail in Congress) and some others voted blank.

Rodríguez is not a petrista so he isn't quite a 'contralor de bolsillo' (a comptroller in the pocket of someone, usually the president). But, quite clearly, the government did what it criticized so often while in opposition, and they operated in a very 'old politics' way to align all of Congress behind their candidate, so 'the change' will have to wait. Now, Prada and others in the Pacto all swear that they didn't offer anything to the other parties in exchange for supporting Rodríguez, that there was no secret political transaction under the table. Perhaps, I can believe this story. I am a bit more skeptical about the Pacto saying that they supported Rodríguez because he swore that he'd an independent, autonomous comptroller...

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Let's take a moment to appreciate the stupidity of the esteemed former president of the House of Representatives, Jennifer Arias (CD-Meta), who plagiarized her university thesis. Now we understand why she needed to plagiarize: she is very dumb.

https://twitter.com/JenniferAriasF/status/1555209044436066307

She does not understand the meaning and use of a comma. Also, she can't spell properly and has terrible syntax/grammar (why random capitalization of words?).