The Economist May 28th 2022 39
The AmericasColombia’selectionThe costs of inaction
“I
t is timefor the left to come to power,”
says Nicole Gómez, a student in Bogo
tá. “We are tired of the inequality, and of
everything staying the same.” She and the
rest of the Colombian electorate go to the
polls on May 29th to elect a new president.
The rightwing incumbent, Iván Duque, is
stepping down after his constitutionally
allotted one term in office.
Ms Gómez plans to vote for Gustavo Pe
tro, a former guerrilla hoping to become
Colombia’s first leftist leader. Her exhaus
tion is typical. Voters want to break with a
political class they see as corrupt and inef
fective. Mr Petro leads the race, but is un
likely to win the 50% of votes needed to
avoid a runoff on June 19th. The election is
the most important in Colombia’s recent
history. The country’s institutions are at
stake, as are its investorfriendly economic
model and the future of the peace deal
signed in 2016, which ended a 50year civil
war. The immediate threat is that violence
breaks out in the election’s aftermath.
When its progress is measured in de
cades, Colombia appears to be doing well.
gdpper person grew from $1,400 in 1990 to$6,700 by 2018. Over the same period, the
share of universityaged people enrolled in
tertiary education nearly quadrupled to
55%. In April 2020 Colombia joined the
oecd, a club mostly of rich economies.
That is good going for a country that has
been in a nearcontinuous state of civil war
since 1948. The most recent one, which ran
from 1964 to 2016, saw the state fighting the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
(farc), a Marxist guerrilla group. A quarter
of a million people died and another 8m
were forced to flee their homes.
Despite the improvements, Colombi
ans like Ms Gómez have reason to be angry.
Their country is one of the most unequal in
the world (see chart on next page). A re
gressive tax system does little to help. Tax
revenues make up just 19% of gdp, far be
low the oecdaverage of 33%. Colombia is
one of the only countries in Latin America
that has never carried out land reform withany gusto. More than 80% of private agri
cultural land remains under the control of
just 1% of farms. That is much higher than
the regional average of about half. Many of
these problems are not getting better. Con
centration of land ownership increased be
tween 2000 and 2015. Inequality has hardly
budged in a decade.
Mr Petro has topped the polls all year.
More than 40% of voters say that they will
cast their ballot for him. He rejects the la
bel of socialist firebrand. As a member of
the m19, a nationalist movement, he says
he did not want to usher in a Soviet econ
omy. He told The Economist that he now
wanted a “socialdemocratic market econ
omy” with “respect for private property
and free enterprise” and a healthy dose of
“social responsibility”.
Centralbank independence will stay,
too, though Mr Petro is keen for “people
close to society” to have a presence on its
board. He has promised in writing, under
oath and before a notary, not to expropriate
businesses. Maria Claudia Lacouture, the
president of the American Chamber of
Commerce in Colombia, says she recently
had a long meeting with Mr Petro. He was
not so businessfriendly the last time he
ran, and lost, in 2018.
Yet many of his proposals remain radi
cal. He wants tariffs on agricultural im
ports, but has not said at what level, just
that their goal will be “domestic job cre
ation”. He guarantees work for Colombia’s
3m unemployed people. New exploration
for oil and gas, products which make upB OGOTÁ
A divided Colombia is poised to elect its first leftist president→Alsointhissection
42 Bello: Mining in the Andes