Two years after the election of the first left-wing president in Colombia, coming from the first successful peace agreement of the last century, the latest Invamer Poll survey, contracted by Noticias Caracol and Blu Radio, reveals that President Petro’s popularity continues falling and disapproval of his mandate stands at 62%. Only 32% of Colombians approve.
These figures confirm what everyone knows in Colombia: that Petro ignores the polls, that there is no communication strategy, and that the presidential struggle for power imposes a political agenda contrary to public opinion, which brings him closer to the social bases in Colombia. the territories, but it distances it from the middle and lower classes in the large capitals.
In Bogotá, 61% of those surveyed disapprove of the president, which means that in two years the president has increased the party of repentants in his electoral fortress by millions. These are educated people, who voted against the old machines and the corruption represented by the right-wing candidate, Rodolfo Hernández, today condemned by Justice due to his intervention in shady deals when he was mayor of Bucaramanga. Disillusioned people who believed in change and today feel that it has not arrived or arrived in reverse, supported by the same tricks of the old political class.
All of this shows that the slope is getting steeper for the Government in its attempt to re-elect its political project in 2026, pass major reforms in Congress that represent a social, political, economic or environmental milestone and make its Constituent Power strategy a reality to change everything.
Halfway through the presidential term, the balance today, in the retina of the citizenry, is a cocktail of major corruption scandals, alleged wiretapping of the Justice, friendly fire in the Casa de Nariño, permanent crisis in the total peace strategy, challenges from illegals to national security, and rampant chaos with a ministerial cabinet on alert with disposable officials, which makes it impossible to believe that there is with what and with whom to re-elect President Petro’s political project.
The achievements of the Government of change, such as keeping the economy afloat in the midst of a world in crisis, having passed the pension reform, having a National Development Plan that prioritizes life and turned the investment plan to education and agrarian reform, with a territorial and ethnic focus, and striving to comply with the Havana peace agreements, have little weight in the balance.
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Of course, there is still a long way to go before Petro reaches the catastrophic levels of unpopularity achieved by Andrés Pastrana, with his failed peace process with the FARC, with whom he made a political pact, through Álvaro Leyva, to defeat Horacio Serpa, in 1998; or those of Iván Duque, as a consequence, in particular, of the poor management of the social unrest and the failure to comply with the Havana peace agreements. Pastrana finished his term with 22% approval, and Duque with 27%.
The president’s unpopularity, of course, is not a consequence of the success of the opposition, which does not have a visible leader who will grow while the Government falls and becomes an alternative. It is rather the result of a style of exercising power that continues to create crises and that the country neither manages nor wants to understand. It is well known that the president’s biggest opponent is himself and that those who have done the most damage to his image are members of his own Government, such as his son Nicolás and the financing of the presidential campaign, plus the Olmedos and Snyder of corruption at the UNGRD, and former Foreign Minister Leyva, with the passport contract, to cite two examples.
The alleged wiretapping of magistrates is a narrative that the administration has bravely confronted, opening the doors of the National Intelligence Directorate to the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Attorney General’s Office to dismantle the opposition’s theses. There is a huge difference between this case and the days when, under the Uribe Government, wiretapping was a verb that was conjugated with passion from the DAS and the opposition, including the Judiciary, was listened to and persecuted openly and without any scruples. Many of those guilty of these acts ended up in jail.
As the months went by, the government of change mutated from agreement and cohabitation with the democratic sector of liberalism and conservatism to a radicalized government of activists and militants, which does not include other voices from the democratic spectrum, because it considers them potential traitors; which seeks unconditional officials who blindly obey palace orders and accommodate themselves to the dictates of an all-powerful chief of staff involved in permanent scandals; ministers who act as vice-ministers, because none can contradict the boss or shine more than he does; a political agenda that is imposed by the president’s tweets; a permanent confrontation in which battle fronts open every day, internal or external; a negotiation that is incomprehensible to the majority with organized crime and guerrillas who are treated as allies and not as enemies of the Constitution and the rule of law.
Yes, the president has imposed the political agenda and has kicked the board so many times that the country has become accustomed to his genius actions that lead to nothing, such as the Constituent Assembly, which has been diluted among corruption scandals, allegations of wiretapping and the support of the ELN and the dissidents of the FARC. The Invamer Poll survey, precisely, shows that 67% of Colombians believe that the president wants to change the Constitution and 62% that he seeks re-election.
The question is how a political project that lives in permanent crisis could be re-elected. What would tip the balance so that the country would renew the mandate of a left-wing government when the idea of the Venezuelanization of Colombia is making headway again, and the right-wing narrative that Petro seeks to govern with armed guerrillas is becoming more credible for popular classes without political culture. The confrontational tone of the first president does not help to resolve the doubts, and, on the contrary, confirms the thesis that re-election today seems impossible.
We will have to wait and see what new faces come to the Cabinet. But it is clear that more radical voices will arrive to activate the permanent campaign of Petrism to guarantee permanence in power, shield the president from opposition attacks and try to silence friendly fire. These ministers will have an immediate challenge: executing the budgets, whose levels are in some cases ridiculous and demonstrate an enormous degree of inexperience and political immaturity. And, on the other hand, blame the blow of fiscal adjustment, with a national budget defunded by 20 billion pesos.
The Government does not have it easy. The left has never had it easy in a country that sees the pendulum swing to the right, that longs for a Milei or a Bukele with an Uribista accent to appear. Fortunately for our democracy, there is no candidate on the horizon similar to those experiments in savior messiahs who use democracy to come to power and demolish it from within, dismantling the welfare state and social policies. But Petrism also does not have a replacement for its leader and the center continues without showing its head in a permanent climate of polarization. Colombian democracy reinvents itself every day and in a year it will be known how capable Petro was of reversing the downward trend and giving a new opportunity to the left to dream of continuing to govern, without re-election, guaranteeing the electoral calendar, without taking shortcuts or dream of extra-constitutional solutions.
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