Iván Cepeda ‘thanks’ because Petro’s constituent assembly was suspended, but the controversial proposal does appear in his government plan

This Thursday, after the electoral defeat that neither the Historical Pact candidate nor President Gustavo Petro have yet recognized, the head of state and his candidate, Senator Iván Cepeda, came out to assure that they are supposedly backing down from the controversial idea of promoting a national constituent assembly.

The move responds to a political reality: the constituent assembly without national consensus that Petro was trying to impose frightens a broad sector of Colombian society, which sees in that idea the materialization of clear risks for democracy: weakening of the balance of powers, the eventual return of presidential re-election, and the elimination of the independence of technical entities, such as the Banco de la República, which have been Petro’s hobbyhorses for more than two years now.

The tough electoral defeat on Sunday against Abelardo de la Espriella was responded to by President Petro with the unprecedented decision not to recognize the election results, a path followed by Cepeda. This attitude raised alarms among those who believe that ‘Petrismo’ follows the model of ‘Chavismo’ and dictator Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, where the regime disregarded democratic results.

The political cost of that exit ended up burying a constituent assembly that was already, even more so given the election results, totally unviable. This despite the fact that Petro had repeatedly defended the proposal for a constituent assembly. He not only mentioned it in multiple speeches, but even published messages on his X account telling citizens where to contribute resources to finance the initiative and openly supported the committee that promoted the collection of signatures to convene it.

In the strategy to gain the support of sectors of the Green Alliance and by bringing centrist politicians like Juan Fernando Cristo into his fold, Cepeda began to speak more about a ‘national agreement’ but, in any case, assured that he did not rule out the constituent assembly.

“There are many valid reasons for distrust (…) It may be that at the end of that path (the national agreement) we agree on the agreed topics (…) and find the mechanism.”

Now, however, his discourse distanced itself from that alternative. “The promoting committee has said that, responding to the call of various democratic sectors, it has decided to join the proposal promoted by Aida Quilcué and Iván Cepeda for the construction of a great national agreement that materializes social reforms,” the candidate affirmed.

Hours earlier, President Petro had also commented on the withdrawal of the initiative from the Registrar’s Office by the promoting committee. Although he defended the objectives pursued by the questioned proposal, he acknowledged that the political landscape changed after the results of the first presidential round.

“The electoral decision reflected in the last elections, by reflecting a deep citizen division, does not allow the constituent assembly to convene itself,” he stated in his message.

Does that mean the idea of the Constituent Assembly is buried? Juan Fernando Cristo told EL TIEMPO that it does, and that supposedly the extreme change to the Constitution was never in Senator Cepeda’s plans. He added that the alignment between the President and the candidate is noticeable.

“Iván Cepeda, in the agreements he made with the Green Alliance and with En Marcha, clearly stated that the path would be a national agreement to process the reforms through Congress. And that has been Cepeda’s position, which has not been modified at any time,” Cristo indicated.

But the truth is that Cepeda’s statement was not as forceful as expected. In fact, the proposal is in his government plan, which is actually a compilation of Cepeda’s speeches.

Analyst and columnist for this media outlet Thierry Ways points out that the message should be read carefully: “The president agrees to “suspend the signature collection process.” Between that and definitively renouncing a constituent assembly, there is a gap.”

The expression “constituent power” appears 23 times in the program and it is not very clear what it refers to. While “national constituent assembly” appears only once in the program, in a section labeled ‘The National Agreement supported by constituent power’.

In that segment, he talks about bringing various political, social, and economic forces to dialogue to build an agreement on pending reforms, peace, the fight against drug trafficking, and territorial transformations.

He says that it is necessary to build a thematic agenda on the issues that need to be transformed, a timeline for sectors to present their positions, and a “mechanism” to implement the agreements on those issues.

It is then indicated that one of these mechanisms could be “a national constituent assembly, or laws and constitutional reforms that we adopt through an expedited path“.

Political analyst Jairo Libreros says that Cepeda’s ‘divorce’ from the constituent assembly would correspond more to a political strategy than to a concrete action and a real intention. “It is not forceful, and ambiguity has a very high political-electoral cost. The same thing they criticized the center for, being lukewarm, is what they are falling into,” he affirmed.”

Even if Cepeda keeps his word, Libreros says, nothing guarantees that Petro, who repeatedly broke the commitment that earned him centrist support in 2018 and 2022, will insist, now outside the Palace, on the convocation. “On June 22, if they don’t win, they will talk about a constituent assembly, and if they win, too,” he concluded.

Political Editorial Staff