In a ceremony full of symbolism, Gustavo Petro, new president of Colombiahighlighted the change he wants for the country, which for the first time will have a leftist and progressive president.
As in the campaign, Petro highlighted in a 47-minute speech, his first as president, the great slogans that led him to the presidency in the June elections.
Equality, peace, the environment, women and the most disadvantaged were the axes of Petro’s speech, the economist and former guerrilla fighter who swore before God and promised before the people to abide by the Constitution before donning the presidential sash with the three Colombian flag colors.
“Petro, friend, the people are with you,” sang the 100,000 people in Plaza Bolívar in Bogotá who enthusiastically received the change that Petro promises.
This is the selection made by BBC Mundo of its most outstanding phrases.
1. “Everything written on them was unrepeatable forever and ever, because the lineages condemned to a hundred years of solitude did not have a second chance on earth”
The second opportunity for Colombia was a key element in the beginning and closing of his speech and for this he used a phrase from the end of the novel “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by the writer Gabriel García Márquez, one of the most illustrious Colombians in the world. and whom Petro admires.
In fact, Petro’s alias in his guerrilla days was “Aureliano” after Aureliano Buendía, the protagonist of García Márquez’s masterpiece.
«I want to tell you that today begins our second chance, we have earned it. His effort was worth and will be worth it, it is time for change », said Petro, who proposes a reformist and ambitious agenda.
2. “We have to end six decades of violence and armed conflict, with two centuries of eternal and perpetual war in Colombia”
Petro established a decalogue of commitments for his four years of presidency that began this Sunday and peace is number one in a country marked by violence, which continues despite the agreement reached with the FARC guerrillas in 2016.
Petro himself belonged in his youth to the guerrilla group M-19, which signed peace with the Colombian state in the early 1990s.
“We will comply with the peace agreement, we will strictly follow the recommendations of the truth commission,” he promised.
“I will work to achieve true peace like no one else, like never before,” he said, calling on the armed groups to lay down their rifles.
3. “The war on drugs has failed”
In a country marked by violence not only from guerrillas but from drug trafficking, Petro called for “a new international convention that accepts that the war on drugs has utterly failed and has left a million Latin Americans murdered, most of them Colombians, during the last few years.” 40 years, and 70,000 Americans die each year from drug overdoses that none are produced in Latin America.
Petro thus perhaps advanced a new stage in relations with the United States, Colombia’s priority partner, among other things, in the fight against drugs.
4. “10% of Colombians have 70% of the wealth”
The fight against inequality is one of the main axes of Petro’s policy since Colombia is one of the most unequal countries in the world, a situation that was exacerbated by the pandemic and that caused social unrest in recent years.
“It is nonsense and amorality, let’s not naturalize inequality and poverty (…) We are one of the most socially unequal nations on the entire planet and that is an aberration that we cannot continue if we want to be a nation and live in peace,” said.
For this, he assured, redistribution will be basic and he named the tax reform as the first and most urgent of those he wants to do. It could be presented to Congress as early as this week.
5. “A sustainable economic, social and environmental model”
Petro defends ecology and the fight against climate change and therefore wants to transform Colombia, one of the most biodiverse countries in the world, into an example for the world. She acquired that sensitivity for the environment when she studied as a young woman in Europe.
“From Colombia we ask for action and not hypocrisy, and for this reason we are going to transition to an economy without coal and oil, but we do little with it because we are not the ones who emit greenhouse gases, it is the rich in the world who do it” , said before emphasizing that Colombia must protect “the largest sponge for absorbing these gases,” the Amazon rainforest.
He asked international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund to reduce the external debt of countries so that they can dedicate resources to environmental policies.
6. “I will govern with and for women”
Petro swore in Francia Márquez as vice president, the first Afro woman to reach that position, and again emphasized women, one of his great electoral strengths.
He gave prominence not only to Márquez, but to his own wife and numerous women quoted throughout the 47-minute speech.
He promised a parity government with a future Ministry of Equality that Márquez will lead. “So that gender does not determine how much you earn and how you live,” she said, promising “real equality and security for women to walk in peace.”
