Only 63 hours separated the newly inaugurated Colombian president from his first major – and unexpected – challenge in office. At 4:30 p.m. on Friday, August 7, Abelardo de la Espriella received the presidential sash marking the start of his term as president of Colombia.
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Less than three days later, at 7:34 a.m. on Monday the 10th, the ambitious agenda of the far-right leader was cut short by the earthquake which, according to the latest report from the National Unit for Disaster Risk Management (UNGRD), left 287 dead, 3,975 injured, and 13,077 homes destroyed in 15 departments and 437 affected municipalities.
This data gains additional relevance given the president’s lack of governmental experience. De la Espriella worked as a criminal lawyer and entrepreneur in various sectors before assuming the presidency, and this is the first time he holds a public office.
The earthquake, magnitude 7.4 with epicenter in the municipality of San José del Palmar, in the department of Chocó, was felt in Bogotá, Quito, and Panama City. It is, according to local media, the largest magnitude recorded in the country this century. Cali, Pereira, Manizales, and Quibdó concentrate most of the collapsed buildings.
De la Espriella canceled his travel plans on Monday, moved to Bogotá, and then toured Quibdó and Cali to coordinate the response. He declared a state of economic emergency, a mechanism that allows him to execute the national budget by decree without going through Congress.
But the UNGRD is burdened by a precarious financial situation after years of questionable management. This Wednesday, the government appointed the new director of the disaster response entity, David Tamayo. After taking office, the new official warned that there would not be enough resources or personnel due to the state in which it was left after the administration of leftist president Gustavo Petro.
“The UNGRD is out of money, indebted, and understaffed,” Tamayo said in an interview with Semana. “We are concerned because we found that the unit only has 30 billion Colombian pesos for the emergency response to the earthquake. We are managing additional resources from international donations,” he stated.
Since the presidential race, De la Espriella’s government program, La Patria Milagro, established the recovery of territorial control as its main axis, supported by an international line of credit and one billion dollars in assistance announced by the U.S. State Department.
But the response to the damage caused by the earthquake may delay the president’s promises. Asked by La Tercera, the executive director of the Institute of Political Sciences Hernán Echavarría Olózaga (ICP), Carlos Chacón, explained that the incoming government’s priority must be to position itself in the affected regions before armed organizations.
“The emergency requires allocating logistical, fiscal, and Public Force capacities to humanitarian aid, while the ELN and the Gulf Clan can take advantage of the institutional vacuum to consolidate corridors and illicit economies,” he said.
For his part, constitutional law academic and professor Rodrigo Pombo agrees that the immediate fiscal impact of the earthquake response will force prioritization of resources. Colombia has a fiscal deficit exceeding 6.5% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), according to The Economist Intelligence Unit. In addition to a gross public debt above 1,067 trillion Colombian pesos, equivalent to about 60.3% of GDP, according to data from the Ministry of Finance.
Regarding this, Pombo explained that the international line of credit close to 50 billion dollars, the billion announced by Washington, and a renewed alliance with Israel in intelligence could compensate for the lack of own resources. However, “security requires immediate money for repairs of ships and aircraft, for changing military personnel equipment, for improvements in technological infrastructure,” the academic detailed to La Tercera.
The government did not delay in launching a strong military offensive against criminal groups and armed dissidents. Last weekend, before the earthquake, De la Espriella ordered operations against the FARC and the Gulf Clan in different regions of the country. Authorities reported the death of a FARC dissident leader in Meta, the killing of two Gulf Clan members in Antioquia, and the capture of four alleged financiers of that organization in Urabá.
Regarding the above, political consultant and former diplomat Hatem Dasuky anticipates that the government will try to maintain the pace of operations against criminal organizations despite the emergency. “I don’t think the agenda regarding that offensive will be postponed,” Dasuky said.
However, the ICP director tempered expectations about the timelines. De la Espriella promised security results in 90 days during the campaign, a promise he moderated before taking office. “An emergency of this magnitude makes it even less realistic to measure success exclusively by a short-term schedule,” Chacón stated.
The department of Chocó has around 550,000 inhabitants, mostly Afro-descendant and indigenous communities. Despite being located in the heart of the Coffee Axis, its economy depends on gold and platinum extraction, logging, fishing, and subsistence agriculture. It is, according to various measurements, one of the poorest departments in the country.
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The region is close to the Pacific Ocean and rivers such as the Atrato, San Juan, and Baudó, which connect the interior of the country with border areas. This geography makes Chocó a corridor for drug trafficking and arms trafficking destined for paramilitary organizations. The ELN maintains presence in the north, center, and river basins of the department. Also, the Gulf Clan and FARC dissidents dispute rural areas and strategic corridors with that organization.
Like other nearby areas of southwestern Colombia, Chocó is a region of low population density, humid jungle, and scarce state presence. They are also regions where the left vote predominates. In the second round, 80% of Chocó’s electorate voted for the Historic Pact candidate, Iván Cepeda.
Pombo attributes the persistence of the vote for the Historic Pact in Chocó to two factors. One, according to the academic, is the pressure of armed groups on communities. The other would be the ground left by poverty and state abandonment for political promises.
“Entering with the Public Force is necessary, it is the first step, but it is not enough,” said the constitutionalist. He attributed that limitation to the decentralization of public spending and the levels of corruption in local institutions, factors that, he explained, make it difficult to sustain state presence beyond the initial military deployment.
The response to the earthquake exposed the disparity in regional development. In Cali, capital of Valle del Cauca, rescue teams arrived from Bogotá by land within hours. In Chocó, damage assessment in rural areas progressed more slowly due to communication failures and access that, in much of the department, is limited to river or air routes.
De la Espriella said this Friday that he has in mind a project similar to the “Marshall Plan” to help the department of Chocó. “I want to propose a special plan, a ‘Marshall Plan’ for Chocó. Chocó has been abandoned to its fate by the centralism of power in Bogotá, as if it did not exist, and I want to give this department of extraordinary people the place it deserves in the ‘miracle homeland’,” the president told journalists upon his arrival in Quibdó, the regional capital.
On Monday, the same day as the earthquake, former Colombian president Gustavo Petro sent a letter to the Senate board requesting authorization to leave the country during the year following the end of his term. Although the session was postponed, on Wednesday the Senate approved the former president’s request.
Days before the handover, Petro had traveled to Cuba on an unscheduled presidential flight and his wife, Verónica Alcocer, appeared in Sweden. Petro also lost his U.S. visa last year after leading a protest in New York in which he asked U.S. soldiers to disobey Donald Trump’s orders regarding Israel.
According to experts consulted by La Tercera, Petro’s request for absence is due to the possibility of avoiding judicial processes in Colombian national territory.
“With all certainty,” the request to leave responds to fear of facing a judicial process, Dasuky said. This, while De la Espriella announced to the United States that he will document acts of corruption of the outgoing government through an “anti-corruption transition” committee led by Vice President José Manuel Restrepo.
Pombo took a similar stance. Petro was included in the U.S. Treasury sanctions list – known as the Clinton list – accused of links to drug trafficking, which limits his financial operations abroad. Added to that, according to the academic, are scandals on various fronts of the outgoing administration. “The possibility that this ends up implicating him and resulting in personal responsibilities for the former president is extraordinarily high,” he argued.
Petro’s wear from handling previous humanitarian crises erodes, according to Pombo, his ability to lead his opposition from the regions affected by the earthquake. “Nobody wants him, they don’t respect him,” the academic said.
“They find in him an incompetence that delegitimizes his criticisms, his attacks, his capacity for opposition,” he commented.
De la Espriella promised during the campaign to bring Petro to justice and has said he will seek his extradition if any international court requests it. In the Legal Commission of Investigation and Accusations of the House of Representatives of Congress, the only body authorized to investigate former presidents, Petro has more than 200 ongoing processes.
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