A key week for Petro’s reforms in Congress amid the tension over the Constituent Assembly

Gustavo Petro does not want to leave the position of president in 2026 without having implemented truly important changes in Colombia. If he does not achieve them, at least he will be able to say – and tell himself – that he tried and that the internal force of the State was the one that did not allow it. The most loyal ones encourage him to follow that path. “President, believe in his instincts,” they tell him over the Line messaging service. They have seen him turn red with fury when he could not modify a budget item or encountered legal or bureaucratic obstacles. Fed up with the stagnation in which he believes the country’s institutions are – molded according to him so that nothing ever changes -, he has embarked on carrying out a Constituent Assembly of which he still has an abstract idea. Last week his people insisted that it could be done based on a paragraph of the Peace Agreement, but the signatories themselves have denied the interpretation they make in the Casa de Nariño. Days of legal discussion are coming, the national sport of this nation, even ahead of cycling. One might think that Petro is betting everything on this unilateral path that he would carry out only with his most like-minded people and “the people.” However, his ministers have spent all these months carrying out silent work that in the next 10 days could yield results.

On June 20, the sessions of Congress end and this legislature ends (the next one will begin a month later). In just over a week the Government can approve two reforms, the pension and the educational one, and save a third, the labor reform. Each one follows its own path and faces its own challenges, but the expectation is that all three can advance. In this legislature, Petro has had a great ally in the presidency of the Chamber, Andrés Calle, creator of many of the pacts. Even Calle tried to hold a meeting on a holiday Monday, without success and without support from the rest, of course. Many see in this game of tug-of-war, consensus, dissent and conversations until dawn, proof that Petro actually does have a political path and that there is, for better or worse, a real will to negotiate on the part of the opposition. . Only he wants to draw a more direct line for change, he believes that the curves will make him run out of time and leave without achieving his true purposes.

In any case, there is a change of mood of the Government in Congress. Petro’s people forced the machinery to achieve the Health reform, which ended up collapsing. It encountered a lot of resistance and the entire debate that it generated meant enormous wear and tear on the ruling party. Some look back and believe that that fight should never have happened, it was a stone that was too difficult to move. Last week, the House of Representatives approved agrarian jurisdiction and a ban on bullfighting. The labor reform, which is in Committee 7 of the House, needs to be approved in a debate to avoid sinking. The pension only depends on the plenary session of the Chamber, where the Government has majorities with relative ease and was also agreed upon. A not inconsiderable result for a Government that seems to show another face in the public debate.

For its part, the education reform has advanced in Congress thanks to an agreement with the opposition. “30 years ago, a statutory education law was not approved in Colombia,” said Germán Blanco, from the Conservative party and president of the commission, amazed by the consensus reached. Its approval seems imminent, although, as has been known in recent hours, last-minute problems have arisen. The main teachers union, Fecode, approved this Monday the entry into permanent strike in rejection of the statutory bill. He uses reasons that do not seem, a priori, typical of the Petro Government. “This is the draft statutory education law with the disastrous content included through the amendments that were agreed upon in the First Committee of the Senate. It is a risk for public education, promotes commercialization, privatization and makes corruption viable. For these and other reasons, we demand its withdrawal or collapse in the Senate and we are going to fight it in the streets,” the union announced in X.

Paradoxically, the success of the Government in Congress in the next ten days would clash with the narrative of the Constituent Assembly, which suggests that there is a deliberate and planned obstruction to prevent the changes that the president has wanted to implement, until now without much success. It could also mean that the national agreement that he talked about so much at the beginning and that now seems buried could be revived, as a substitute for the Constituent Assembly. Strong people around him, such as Iván Cepeda, have insisted that this is the way, to achieve what previous presidents have not achieved. However, that does not seem to be his intention now. He does not abandon the politics that are made in Congress, but neither does the temptation to try to change everything from the roots. His Government moves between these two tensions.

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