Gustavo Petro has closed ranks in help of his Guatemalan counterpart, Bernardo Arévalo. The Colombian president’s diplomatic audacity, which on different events has induced friction and criticism, on this case earned him an ovation as he left the Central American nation for the World Financial Discussion board in Davos, Switzerland. A last-ditch try to forestall the switch of energy in Guatemala, which finally befell within the early hours of Monday morning, meant that a number of the worldwide company invited to the ceremony needed to go away earlier than the swearing-in. However not Petro, who remained agency in his promise to not depart till Arévalo had taken workplace.
“Applause that’s definitely worth the effort. Battles that have to be fought,” Petro wrote in a message accompanied by a video of the ovation on X, his favourite social community. “My private place is identical as all the time; the struggle for democracy from any perspective and by many paths. That’s the reason we launched a solidarity marketing campaign that helped in a sure means, so the destabilization that was underway wouldn’t have an impact,” he advised the press in Guatemala Metropolis, the place he had left open the potential of canceling his journey to Davos if circumstances required.
Petro, the primary leftist president of latest Colombia, is aligned with the anti-corruption stance of Arévalo and his Seed Motion. He had already clearly positioned himself a yr in the past, earlier than Arévalo was even thought-about a contender within the August 2023 presidential elections, when Guatemala’s Legal professional Common’s Workplace unexpectedly indicted his protection minister, Iván Velásquez. “I’ll by no means settle for the arrest warrant for Minister Velásquez. If Guatemala insists on jailing good males, we would like nothing to do with that nation,” he declared on the time. Though he referred to as the Colombian ambassador for session, the insinuation of a breaking of relations with the federal government of Alejandro Giammattei didn’t materialize.
Velásquez, Petro argued on the time, was persecuted by the pursuits he encroached upon when he headed the Worldwide Fee In opposition to Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) from 2013 to 2017, which laid naked the corruption of Guatemala’s political class. From his place, sponsored by the United Nations, Velásquez dismantled dozens of corrupt constructions and took on many highly effective sectors. He might need stepped on many toes, however he was extremely revered.
The accusation of prosecutor Rafael Curruchiche was introduced as a breakthrough within the investigations into the Brazilian development firm Odebrecht. The identical prosecutor, questioned in his nation and labeled a corrupt actor by america, in December sought to annul the elections during which Arévalo was elected. The Group of American States (OAS) thought-about the transfer an “tried coup d’état.” Ever because the Seed Motion’s candidate received the elections, the Public Prosecutor’s Workplace, headed by Legal professional Common Consuelo Porras, has tried to forestall the inauguration of the president-elect with the opening of a number of judicial processes. The worldwide neighborhood denounced these maneuvers as an assault on democracy and supported Arévalo, however few embraced the Guatemalan trigger as fervently as Petro.
Petro’s rise to energy a yr and a half in the past marked the trail of the brand new Latin American left. His discourse in favor of the struggle towards local weather change, rethinking world drug coverage, or searching for complete peace in Colombia offered him with worldwide prominence firstly of his mandate. Later, his hyperactivity on social networks undermined Colombian diplomacy. Guatemala has allowed him to reassert himself after a number of misguided steps.
The Latin American left has warned of the dangers of a politicized justice system, with vital variations from nation to nation. Denunciations of “lawfare,” proscription, or coup makes an attempt such because the one suffered by Lula da Silva in Brazil have clouded regional politics. “Arévalo is a progressive, and Petro identifies with what progressivism has labeled as the principle risk towards democracy — which is the authorized battle — and he feels that Arévalo has been a sufferer of lawfare,” says Mauricio Jaramillo, professor of worldwide relations on the College of the Rosary in Bogotá.
Petro aspires to be a regional chief, Jaramillo provides, and each time a constitutional disaster arises he takes the chance to current himself as a defender of democracy. He did so within the case of Pedro Castillo in Peru, ousted after a slipshod self-coup try, however his place then provoked an avalanche of criticism and reproaches. The main position he performed in Guatemala permits him to reconfigure his picture in Latin America.
Unhesitatingly placing Colombia’s weight behind the legitimacy of Arévalo’s election labored out properly for Petro, says analyst Sergio Guzmán of the consulting agency Colombia Threat Evaluation. “I applaud what Petro did in Guatemala, however we have now to view his democratic attitudes in a broad spectrum,” he notes. “Petro may even be judged by how democratic he’s at house; how a lot he attends to the reputable calls for of the opposition.” In the interim, Colombia’s president can chalk up a well timed diplomatic achievement.
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