ALatin America in its recent political history has had pendular behavior; it has gone from center-left oriented governments to center-right ones –at times there were strongly authoritarian governments, such as those inspired by the ‘national security doctrine’-. It seems that ‘alternating’ as a characteristic of democracies has had that particular expression in the region. Colombia had been somewhat of an exception, to the extent that the elites had maintained stable political coalitions – whose best expression was the so-called National Front – and that there had been a long and stubborn internal armed conflict with a variety of insurgencies and that had been One of the reasons why a solid legal political left could not have developed was that it had apparently remained on the sidelines of this pendular behavior. For this reason, in that cycle of center-left or progressive governments of the first decade of the 21st century, strongly marked by the presence of the Venezuelan caudillo Hugo Chávez and his so-called ‘Socialism of the 21st Century’ – with the diversity of expressions that speech had in countries like Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, etc.-, with a high role of Venezuelan oil, Colombia continued to have center-right governments focused on the task of trying to defeat the guerrilla insurgency and prevent the consolidation of a political left out of fear to ‘Castro-Chavismo’ or the so-called ’21st century socialism’.
This new wave of center-left governments, having as a benchmark for their action as all governments or movements that claim to be center-left have, the orientation of their public policies to seek to reduce the odious social gaps as much as possible, however They intend to do so is by developing capitalism, but by giving a new role to the State as a catalyst, promoter -some analysts call it an entrepreneur-, in a kind of neo-Keynesianism and orienting social policies in a redistributive perspective, seeking that they benefit the excluded. historical and recent, but maintaining harmonious relations with the United States and other centers of global power, within a recognition of the contemporary multipolar world and at the same time trying to recover and strengthen the instances of autonomous coordination and integration of the governments of the region, with emphasis on stimulating and participating in work processes We must recognize that Colombian President-elect Gustavo Petro has been a diligent leader in this regard, having respect for the institutionality typical of liberal democracies – the tri-division of powers, the human rights of all, the respect for the opposition – and especially respect for the Military and Police Forces, of course under the universally accepted presupposition of their subordination to the guidance and leadership of the democratically elected civil rulers.
The great expectation in the region and surely at the global level is to what extent these new center-left or progressive governments manage to achieve their objectives.
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