Leftist, a former militiaman of M-19, a terrorist organization that proposed a mix of socialism and revolutionary nationalism, Gustavo Petro, 62, seems to be the wrong candidate in the wrong country. Instead he is widely favored in the polls. He tries again, leaders of “Colombia Humana”, after having been rejected in 2010 and then in 2018; this time the projections push him to 36.6% of the preferences, well beyond his two opponents. “I am a revolutionary” – Petro repeated during the electoral campaign – even if he reiterates “not to be a communist, not to want to expropriate anyone”.
Petro-thought, refers to Europe, to the styles proposed by progressive candidates: energy transition, attention to environmental issues, a network of solidarity for the most disadvantaged, a pact of coexistence and cultural rebirth. There are, of course, references to the recent history of Colombia, to the overcoming of that conflict and violence which has produced tens of thousands of deaths for half a century. The specter of drug trafficking is not a ghost of the past, the country remains innervated by illicit trafficking, albeit very rich in natural wealth and human resources. Petro goes beyond the rhetoric of the fight against narcos and unhinges the model of exploitation of natural resources: «We leave Colombian coal there, underground; and this is a message from science ».
Maria Fernanda Gonzalez Binetti, Professor of Political Communication in Paris, Science Po, explains that “Petrism seeks to trigger a change in the minds of citizens: a migration towards less commercial forms of coexistence, especially those linked to drugs. Petro’s raid could be comparable to that of Mitterrand, in France, in 1981. It would be disruptive, a discontinuity, a real political alternation ”.
“The ideas of a rebel” is an electoral program that has its roots in European thinkers on which Petro was trained. From Rousseau he borrowed the “social contract”, a pact that makes civil coexistence plausible, renamed by Petro as the historic Pact. From Foucault, the “change of power”; new social relations and more evolved models of production and consumption. Marx, on the other hand, induces Petro to imagine a rethinking of society, modulated on a philosophy of life oriented more towards being than having. Finally, Garcia Marquez, the totem of Colombian culture: a cry for freedom in the face of a dominant and excluding elite, encrusted in power.
Petro’s idea goes beyond national borders: «It is unthinkable for a Latin America – right or left – that lives off the extraction of gas, oil, copper. The only possibility of sustainable development is knowledge, production ». Beyond the electoral rhetoric, the idea is to promote and support alternative crops, cocoa, coffee. But coca has always been rooted in the culture of this country.