I don't think Petro is the best choice for Colombia right now but Colombia isn't - and won't be - Venezuela for many reasons.
1. The Colombian Army. In the 1980s and 90s many officers in the Venezuelan military became radicalized to the left. Reasons were pretty much what you would expect - disgust over corrupt politicians and millions living in poverty despite the country's oil wealth. Chavez was a leader in that movement and had so many supporters in the military that he was later able to purge his opponents. So, does anyone think that there is some vast left-wing conspiracy among Colombia's officer corps after all the decades they've spent fighting left-wing guerillas? If Petro were so inclined as to overreach his powers the military would quash him in a minute.
2. Colombia has a diversified economy. Chavez did a lot of stupid things but the biggest one was assuming that oil would stay at $120 a barrel. But if it had, Maduro would be very popular in Venezuela right now. Although Chavez's policies certainly made things worse, the root of Venezuela's problems is cheap oil. Chavez did the same stupid thing that his predecessors had done over the decades. Instead of using the oil money to diversify the economy (as some of the Arabs are doing) he treated it as a bottomless piggy bank for give-aways. Colombia's economy is not dependent on the price of a single commodity.
3. Numerous other leftist presidents in Latin America have not trashed their countries' economies - e.g. Evo Morales in Bolivia, Ollanta Humala in Peru, Lula in Brazil, and Rafael Correa in Ecuador. Yes, there was some corruption in their governments (where isn't there) and some of them have big egos. And certainly none of them are/were perfect leaders. But their countries did OK under their governments. During the ten years that Rafael Correa ruled Ecuador the retired expat population there exploded. Ecuador has way more retirees than Colombia does. I just spent two months in Cuenca and the 10,000 mostly American & Canadian expats there are quite happy. (And some of them are very conservative - I met a lot of Trump supporters.)
Talk that Petro would turn Colombia into Venezuela is just fear-mongering from the same kind of people who claimed that Obama was going to impose Sharia Law in the USA or that Trump will turn the USA into the next Nazi Germany. Too much attention to this kind of nonsense distracts people from the real issues, whether in Colombia, the USA, or wherever.
1. The Colombian Army. In the 1980s and 90s many officers in the Venezuelan military became radicalized to the left. Reasons were pretty much what you would expect - disgust over corrupt politicians and millions living in poverty despite the country's oil wealth. Chavez was a leader in that movement and had so many supporters in the military that he was later able to purge his opponents. So, does anyone think that there is some vast left-wing conspiracy among Colombia's officer corps after all the decades they've spent fighting left-wing guerillas? If Petro were so inclined as to overreach his powers the military would quash him in a minute.
2. Colombia has a diversified economy. Chavez did a lot of stupid things but the biggest one was assuming that oil would stay at $120 a barrel. But if it had, Maduro would be very popular in Venezuela right now. Although Chavez's policies certainly made things worse, the root of Venezuela's problems is cheap oil. Chavez did the same stupid thing that his predecessors had done over the decades. Instead of using the oil money to diversify the economy (as some of the Arabs are doing) he treated it as a bottomless piggy bank for give-aways. Colombia's economy is not dependent on the price of a single commodity.
3. Numerous other leftist presidents in Latin America have not trashed their countries' economies - e.g. Evo Morales in Bolivia, Ollanta Humala in Peru, Lula in Brazil, and Rafael Correa in Ecuador. Yes, there was some corruption in their governments (where isn't there) and some of them have big egos. And certainly none of them are/were perfect leaders. But their countries did OK under their governments. During the ten years that Rafael Correa ruled Ecuador the retired expat population there exploded. Ecuador has way more retirees than Colombia does. I just spent two months in Cuenca and the 10,000 mostly American & Canadian expats there are quite happy. (And some of them are very conservative - I met a lot of Trump supporters.)
Talk that Petro would turn Colombia into Venezuela is just fear-mongering from the same kind of people who claimed that Obama was going to impose Sharia Law in the USA or that Trump will turn the USA into the next Nazi Germany. Too much attention to this kind of nonsense distracts people from the real issues, whether in Colombia, the USA, or wherever.
