Hours after Colombia’s leftist president Gustavo Petro demanded that his entire cabinet resign, he boarded a flight to Dubai to give a speech on artificial intelligence and the threat it poses to “global civilisation”.
But while the onetime guerrilla group member was describing himself as global leader on the issue, back home his government was in disarray. A week later it is unclear who will lead several key ministries, including defence, even as fierce battles between rebel groups in the country’s north-east have displaced at least 52,000 people.
The chaotic reshuffle — which followed a botched attempt by Petro to stand up to pressure over migration from US President Donald Trump — has added to the isolation of the country’s first leftist leader halfway through his term, and threatens to worsen a security crisis in the US’s backyard.
Paca Zuleta, who heads the school of government at Bogotá’s University of the Andes, said: “You can’t get much done in two years in office, but you can certainly destroy a lot.”
The crisis was sparked by Petro’s choice to appoint the scandal-ridden political operator Armando Benedetti as chief of staff, while promoting Laura Sarabia, a 30-year-old confidante, to foreign minister despite her lack of foreign policy experience. Both are embroiled in a campaign finance scandal that continues to roil the government.
Analysts and insiders said the appointments were made with an eye to presidential and legislative elections in May next year, in which Petro is barred from standing again but is seen as wishing to install a loyal successor to continue Colombia’s leftist experiment.
“He’s thinking a lot about the 2026 election and that there’s continuity,” said a former official, on condition of anonymity. “And while it’s possible to govern while keeping one eye on the election, his experience is in opposition and in campaigning, so that’s why he’s more comfortable in that space.”
María Fernanda Carrascal, a member of congress from Petro’s Historic Pact party, said the upheaval in the cabinet, and Benedetti’s addition to it, was necessary ahead of next year’s vote. “It’s no secret that the government has had to make democratic alliances with different sectors, not only to win the elections, but also to maintain its ability to govern,” Carrascal said.
Petro, a self-described revolutionary and prolific social media user who spent years in opposition either side of a stint as mayor of Bogotá, took office in August 2022 promising to overhaul the oil and coal exporter’s investor-friendly economic model while weaning the country off fossil fuels.
But since then, warring rebel groups and drug traffickers have expanded their presence as his plans for wide-ranging peace talks floundered.
Fiscal stability has come under heavy strain, in part due to increased spending and reduced tax take, while a ban on new fossil fuel exploration has led to growing reliance on imported natural gas. Foreign direct investment last year fell 17.6 per cent.
On Friday, the government levied a surprise 1 per cent tax on fossil fuel production — citing powers granted by emergency decrees in response to the fighting in Catatumbo in the north-east.
Petro has had some success in expanding the state’s role in pensions, but attempts to reform health, education and labour laws have faced pushback in congress, where he declared the death of his left-of-centre coalition as long ago as April 2023.
Zuleta said that despite the grim outlook, Petro “is not taking responsibility for the actions of his own government” and that he “does not seem interested in changing his leadership style”.
The collapse of Petro’s cabinet was triggered by rancorous televised six-hour cabinet meeting on February 4 that aimed to discuss the emergency in Catatumbo. In the meeting several front-benchers — including his vice-president Francia Márquez — blasted Petro for installing Benedetti.
Petro in turn accused his front bench of “sectarianism” and blamed them for fulfilling only 49 of his 195 campaign promises. “The president is a revolutionary, but the government is not, because it has a parallel agenda,” he said.
Zuleta said she was concerned that Petro would push forward with trying to act unilaterally, “seeking a government that is clearly undemocratic and carries a very high risk of corruption”.
The mood had already been soured by a crisis in US relations, after a tweet by Petro at 3am on January 26 announced the rejection of a US military flight carrying deported migrants in handcuffs. It swiftly earned Trump’s wrath and almost led to revenge tariffs on Colombian goods.
In another tweet that night, Petro likened Trump to a “white slaver”, while comparing himself to a perennially unsuccessful revolutionary commander from Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. Colombia is “the country of the colonels of Aureliano Buendía”, Petro wrote as his ministers scrambled, “of which I am one, perhaps the last”.
“Fortunately Trump didn’t respond to that tweet, otherwise it would have escalated further,” said an official with knowledge of the talks.
Later that evening Petro’s ministers and officials announced the dispute with Washington had been “overcome”. Flights of deported migrants began arriving two days later.
Other leaders in the region have since opted to take a far more cautious and conciliatory approach to the US leader. The official said that “the president had shown how not to handle a crisis” with Trump.
María Claudia Lacouture, head of the Colombian-American Chamber of Commerce, said the relationship between Washington and Bogotá should not be subject to the whims of the Colombian president.
“There’s no space for division or political opportunism,” she said, as when that occurs “it’s all of us that [are] affected”.
