Gustavo Petro responds to the call of the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, to participate this week in the progressive summit in Barcelona, in the midst of the electoral campaign to choose his replacement as president of Colombia. There, less than four months before handing over power and in a meeting that presents itself as an alternative to the geopolitical and ideological agenda of Donald Trump, he will alternate with the presidents of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva; Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum – on her first trip outside America –; and Uruguay, Yamandú Orsi.
The first left-wing leader of contemporary Colombia will participate on Friday in an academic panel at the University of Barcelona and will meet with Sánchez, while on Saturday he will give a speech at the Global Progressive Mobilization, attend the plenary session, and is also expected to participate along with a dozen other presidents in the IV Meeting in Defense of Democracy, “with the aim of defending the principles and values of democracy, multilateralism, and respect for the international order based on rules,” according to the Spanish Government.
The host Sánchez and the Brazilian Lula are the main promoters of the Global Progressive Mobilization, which convenes leaders of socialism, the labor world, and progressive think tanks with the purpose of facilitating cooperation among social-democratic, socialist, and labor organizations from different countries. It is also the response of the democratic left to offer an alternative to the conservative and far-right forces advancing positions in various places. The defense of multilateralism is another of the main banners, burdened by wars such as those in Iran and Ukraine, or the intervention of the United States in Venezuela. Sánchez, who has coincided with Petro in persistently denouncing the Gaza massacre, advocates for international law and has opposed the attack on Tehran.
It was also Sánchez and Lula, who exude harmony, who last November, at the last minute, rescued the lackluster summit between the European Union and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, Celac, held in the Colombian city of Santa Marta, a port on the Caribbean. Petro, who has sought to position himself as a leader of progressivism, in some way returns the favor to his allies, although he does so after having sealed an unexpected truce with Trump, after almost a year in permanent collision. The Colombian and the American buried the hatchet with a meeting at the White House in early February, at the end of which they exchanged the usual insults for a surprising exchange of compliments. Petro, however, is still working to get off the list of those sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury. “This is not an anti-Trump meeting,” clarified the Mexican Sheinbaum this Thursday.
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In addition to the president of Colombia, other prominent figures from the Historic Pact, the ruling party, such as Senator María José Pizarro and former Environment Minister Susana Muhamad, will attend the meeting in Spain. “The Barcelona summit will discuss a wide range of topics related to the defense of democracy at a time when authoritarianism and the far right are taking over democracies around the world,” Muhamad explains by phone, deeply involved in environmental diplomacy circuits since she presided over COP16 on biodiversity held in Cali. “It will work on climate issues, political leadership, and the networks we must build to have a great progressive force that can defend democracy in these times of emergency of authoritarianism and fascism,” she adds.
The Global Progressive Mobilization will also be a space to build alliances internationally, points out Pizarro. “Especially when in Colombia there will be the great dispute with the far right, and the possibility of continuing to advance in building a Colombia of opportunities,” she highlighted in a message with an electoral tone on her social networks. The senator is also the campaign chief for Iván Cepeda, the Historic Pact candidate who appears first in all presidential polls. Second place is exchanged between Paloma Valencia, from the Democratic Center, the party founded by former right-wing president Álvaro Uribe, and the far-right Abelardo de la Espriella. The first round will be on May 31, and if no candidate obtains more than half of the votes, there will be a second round on June 21.
Cepeda himself, who promises continuity of Petro’s political project, has also met with several of the progressive leaders who will be in Barcelona. On the campaign trail, he has traveled to Brazil to visit Lula and to Mexico twice to meet with Sheinbaum, the two major Latin American countries governed by the left. He also met in January with Pedro Sánchez in Madrid, a trip accompanied by Senator Pizarro. This international prestige has precedents in Petro’s campaign four years ago. At that time, the left-wing candidate visited Pope Francis in the Vatican, met with French economist Thomas Piketty, was invited to the inauguration in Chile of Gabriel Boric – another figure present in Barcelona, now as a former president – and exchanged nods with Mexican Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Also, like Cepeda, he met with Sánchez in Madrid, a meeting that will be repeated this Friday already at the end of his four-year term.
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