Among the first tangible political actions after the defeat in the first round, progressive sectors suspended the intention to seek a national constituent assembly. Both the signature collection committee and President Gustavo Petro and candidate Iván Cepeda announced the decision as an attempt to approach centrist sectors.
“If the country reaches the national agreement I proposed around the social reforms the people need, we will surely build peace and progress for everyone. Today, the flag of life and of a sovereign and free Colombia is the priority. I support the decision that the citizen committee for the National Constituent Assembly has taken to suspend the signature collection process,” Petro declared.
In this way, he renounced, for the moment, his proposal for a constituent assembly. While it is true that it was one of the points requested by some centrist sectors, as shown by the decalogue published by Sergio Fajardo, the measure has not fully convinced centrist sectors, who have not yet confirmed their support for one candidate or the other.
The issue stems from the president’s continuous failure to uphold his commitment not to seek to change the 1991 Constitution outside of established channels. Petro even signed in marble that he would not seek a constituent assembly, and this government has repeatedly broken that commitment.
In 2018, when Gustavo Petro was facing Iván Duque, the current President accepted a series of agreements to gain support from other alternative sectors that had some reservations about his political conduct.
The current president signed in marble a dodecalogue of commitments he would assume if he reached the Presidency. Several of the points were aimed at alleviating fears that Gustavo Petro aroused in the Colombian population, among them that of convening a Constituent Assembly, as many pointed out that he would follow the same path as Hugo Chávez’s regime.
“I will not convene a constituent assembly,” said the second point of the agreements assumed by Gustavo Petro, which included commitments to implement the peace agreement, respect the Social Rule of Law, and non-expropriation, among other points.
“My commitments written in marble will be in the president’s office. Commitments to the citizenry, to Mockus, to Claudia López, to decency throughout Colombia”; was the message that the then candidate included on social networks. The signature on the kind of “twelve commandments” did not allow the now president to win at the polls in 2018. However, since then he has referred to that fact in various spaces.
However, the president broke this commitment when he saw his social reform agenda stall in Congress. He even tried to invalidate it under the argument that it was in 2018 and that the country’s political reality had changed.
In a speech he gave in March 2024 from Cali, Petro forgot what he had signed in marble and announced the proposal that has marked a good part of his mandate. “If this possibility of a popularly elected Government in the midst of this State and under the constitution of Colombia, cannot apply the constitution because they surround it to prevent its application and impede it, then Colombia has to go to a National Constituent Assembly. Colombia does not have to kneel, the popular triumph of 2022 is respected and the National Constituent Assembly must transform institutions so that they obey the people’s mandate for peace and justice, which is easy to achieve in Colombia,” he said in a public square.
To support his proposal, former foreign minister Álvaro Leyva, now a staunch opponent of the Petro government, launched his proposal that the peace agreements with the defunct Farc enabled the Executive to convene a constituent assembly. Supposedly, the section of the agreement that called for concerting a great national political agreement was the way in which Petro could bypass the mechanism established by the 1991 Constitution to convene this space.
He even added that the non-compliance with the peace agreement was another argument for this. For this reason, the president threatened to report the non-compliance with the peace agreement to the United Nations Security Council to supposedly enable that constituent door.
The arrival of Juan Fernando Cristo to Gustavo Petro’s government as Minister of the Interior suspended that possibility. At first, he managed to channel the proposal through the mechanisms of the current Magna Carta and then weakened it by proposing the search for a great national agreement. The opposition always questioned that while the minister sought an agreement, the Colombian president attacked them and closed any path to rapprochement.
After February 4, 2025, the date of the first council of ministers, Gustavo Petro’s government became radicalized again and relaunched the constituent proposal, this time with the Minister of Justice, Eduardo Montealegre. He even presented an initiative of popular order to Congress to convene this space. The government has been feeding this proposal until it reached the consolidation of a popular committee for the collection of signatures.
During these months, the Executive has said that it is a popular initiative, however, it has depended on the directives coming from the Casa de Nariño itself. This was one of the most advanced attempts to convene a constituent assembly, so much so that the committee was registered with the Registrar’s Office, a bill was presented in Congress, and July 20 was even proposed as the date for the presentation of the final bill for its processing.
JUAN SEBASTIÁN LOMBO DELGADO
Political writing
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