PETRO'S RESHUFFLE
It may be his last chance to turn his flagging presidency around.
Colombia’s embattled President Gustavo Petro announced he would carry out another major reshuffling of his cabinet – the third in just sixteen months. With dismally low approval ratings at the half-way mark of his term, Petro set a long deadline for himself - July 20 - to reboot his efforts at salvaging some of the “transformative” promises he made to win the 2022 campaign.
The announcement came as Congress approved a watered-down version of Petro’s pension reform proposal that will ensure short-term fiscal relief but failed to adjust retirement ages to avoid funding gaps in the medium term. Petro’s former finance minister Jose Antonio Ocampo, whom he fired in a previous reshuffle, said the reform is “unsustainable” if retirement ages are not adjusted upwards. It was a signal of the knife’s edge where Petro’s reformist agenda is currently resting.
What is underneath?
Petro’s announced reshuffle is a departure in style and situational awareness for a presidency that has been marked by erratic and mercurial behavior. His previous reshuffles only added to the sense of unease about his leadership. In March 2023, Petro replaced three political moderate ministers after an internal letter criticizing his healthcare reform proposals was leaked to the media.
One month later, as the health reform package hit predicable skids in Congress, Petro sacked the rest of the moderates in his cabinet including the popular Ocampo and six others with a view to “consolidate the government’s program” with more strident loyalists. It only worsened his political standing, and his healthcare reform crashed on the rocks along with his education reform.
Petro’s disapproval rating has soared to over 60%, and it has made him only more strident in tone and style during the first half of his term. He has veered off into strange obsessions like his energetic and often antisemitic defense of Hamas after its attack on Israel last October, culminating in his severing of diplomatic relations with Israel in May. As his legislative efforts have repeatedly failed in Congress, Petro has leaned into heavy handed executive actions to force changes that have come across as politically desperate, adding to the image of a leader who seems unable to forge consensus and blames everyone but himself. Looming corruption scandals have made a difficult situation worse.
The non-transformative victory on pension reform provided a political light at the end of the tunnel, and Petro at least appears to recognize the opportunity. He has pledged that the new cabinet reshuffle will focus on technical expertise, and he is aiming at improving his ability to get legislation moved through Congress with an invigorated new team. “In the next two years, there is only room left to execute the government’s program,” he said in a radio interview. He dispensed with the precept of “political representation” in the formation of his cabinet. “I believe that era is over,” he conceded.
Many of his colleagues around the region like Chile’s Gabriel Boric, Brazil’s Lula da Silva and Argentina’s Javier Milei have also struggled for needed legislative victories on reform in the context of divided governments. None of them have legislatures where they can command majorities on any policy priorities. Milei, the lone conservative of the bunch, is the only one making serious progress (see below) and he is early in his term. The leftists, to date, have lacked either the skill or vision to co-opt the middle and practice the art of winning.
Our take:
This latest reshuffle may be Petro’s final opportunity to turn his presidency around, and he appears to finally see the hole he’s in. Turning the exercise into a deliberate-seeming one, with a long lead time, will also bring greater scrutiny and drama to the process. This will be a test of Petro’s temperament as well as a last chance to show he can forge consensus and lead. The political dynamics of Colombia are not moving in his direction, so he must move instead along with them.
So far, it’s not clear whether the reshuffle will represent more of the same or a genuine attempt at salvaging reforms he knows he must get done in some form. If he makes good on his promise to select new ministers based on their technical competencies rather than loyalty, this second interpretation might hold.
However, Petro has only favored confrontation over consensus-building so far, a strategy that has deepened polarization and left underlying issues unresolved in their wake. If he continues down that path, particularly if this new reshuffle unravels due to his own blustery personality, he risks further weakening the country’s faith in its institutions and opening the door to more extreme presidential contenders in 2026.
While the reshuffle appears promising, Petro badly needs policy victories no matter how modest, and his focus must be sharp and disciplined from here onward. If the shift in style and tone becomes truly palpable and believable, skilled leaders are more likely to say yes to his invitation to the cabinet. Those inclined to be his allies in Congress will no longer find him an untrustworthy partner. His enemies won’t be emboldened to confront him as they so easily do today.
The fact that all of this seems like a tall order for Petro means the skeptics have the edge at this moment. Nobody likes a redemption story more than the average voter in Latin America. It’s a shame more leaders don’t seem able or willing to provide one. We’ll see where Petro lands.
What We’re Watching:
An intensifying power struggle within Bolivia’s ruling Movement for Socialism (MAS) between President Luis Arce and former president Evo Morales was briefly sidelined on Wednesday by a dramatic confrontation outside the presidential palace. Ousted Army General Juan José Zúñiga, who Arce had just fired, mobilized a group of soldiers to seize the seat of government in a poorly thought-out coup attempt that quickly unraveled. Zúñiga had been publicly clashing with Morales (indeed, Morales is fighting with everyone from the sidelines) and the conflict had escalated to direct threats. This led Arce to dismiss Zúñiga, and his impulsive coup attempt was broadcast as a desperate act to prevent Morales from returning to power in next year’s general elections. Arce won the support of the military’s leadership quickly and Zúñiga was arrested. It was all a momentary distraction from the escalating internal divisions over MAS’s failing economic model, which has featured raucous anti-government protests in La Paz and Cochabamba. This has pitted Arce, once Morales’ successful finance minister, against the populist former leader who in 2019 tried to unconstitutionally extend his 13 year-old mandate in an election marked by voter fraud, was ousted and driven into exile. Arce was his hand-picked MAS candidate in 2020, but the socialist economic model was already under strain when the Covid pandemic hit and its imbalances became unmanageable. Morales’ obsessive desire to regain power at any cost has cast Arce as a villain and split the party. Morales’ supporters in Congress have made it nearly impossible for Arce to effectively govern and driven his popularity further downward as natural gas production has fallen and dollar reserves are evaporating. A final bizarre twist to Wednesday’s events came as Zúñiga was being arrested when he claimed, without evidence, he had staged the coup attempt at Arce’s direction. Morales quickly seized on that, launching a conspiracy theory that it was all staged and the leftist media throughout Latin America is loudly amplifying it. More chaos appears to be in store.
President Javier Milei scored a big victory yesterday as Congress gave final approval to his amended structural reform proposals known as the Basis Law. It was pruned down from its sweeping original text, but remains a comprehensive reform package that grants Milei executive powers he sought to manage the economy while advancing reforms to the tax system and investment incentives along with the privatization of some state-owned firms. Milei is expected to go back to the legislature with key measures, particularly on taxes, that were excised during negotiations on passage. But the political significance of the win is huge for the radical reformist who came into power with the biggest mandate since the return to democracy but only a handful of loyalists to back his agenda in Congress.