Petro delivers his final speech as President of Colombia

On July 20, Colombian President Gustavo Petro delivered what he said would be his final public speech before handing over the presidency to his successor. In the most recent presidential election held on June 21, the candidate Petro supported – leftist Iván Cepeda – lost in the runoff by a narrow margin (fewer than 300,000 votes) to the far-right candidate Abelardo de la Espriella. Petro has alleged fraud in the vote count and that, for this reason, he does not and will not recognize De la Espriella as the legitimate president of Colombia.

Statements by Petro and De la Espriella have led to the suspension of the information handover meetings that typically take place between the outgoing and incoming administrations. De la Espriella announced the future creation of a commission to investigate alleged crimes committed by Petro’s administration, a move interpreted by progressive and leftist forces as the announcement of a new cycle of political persecution – this time, as Petro himself stated, through the ordinary justice system, in a process known as “lawfare.”

For his part, Petro has positioned himself (even before the new government took office) as an opponent of De la Espriella’s announced and intended policies, such as complete alignment with the interests of Washington and Tel Aviv, the end of the peace process initiated several years ago in Colombia, and the radicalization of the neoliberal model, for example, through the announced 40% reduction in the size of the state.

Thus, Petro has already issued strong statements against the incoming government’s far-right agenda. It is no coincidence that in his latest public speech, Petro appeared before thousands of his supporters wearing a T-shirt that read “We are the land of the jaguar,” a clear reference to the animal De la Espriella uses in his political campaign – a tiger.

In his latest speech, Petro emphasized the historical significance that building peace has held for various politicians in a country like Colombia, which has been ravaged by political and state violence and deep social inequalities. That is why he highlighted the example of Carlos Pizarro, a former Colombian guerrilla fighter who laid down his arms to pursue a political career and was later assassinated while running for president – a fate shared by thousands of left-wing party activists in Colombia, as was the case with the Patriotic Unity party.