MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Petro signs petition sheet backing a constituent assembly push in Colombia

Petro has framed the constituent assembly as a central plank for the months ahead

Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Tuesday signed one of the official sheets being used by a left-leaning citizens’ committee to collect signatures in support of calling a National Constituent Assembly. The move came during a Cabinet meeting livestreamed on the presidency’s social media channels, 12 days before congressional elections.

According to the presidency’s own account, Petro asked to be the first to sign. “I want to put the first signature,” he said when a minister brought the forms into the meeting. In an institutional post, the presidency stated: “During the Council of Ministers, President @petrogustavo and the Cabinet signed the request for a National Constituent Assembly in Colombia.”

A Cabinet member quoted by local media said it “was not an instruction from the president” and described it as a “spontaneous act” by Labour Minister Antonio Sanguino, during a lighter moment in a nearly three-hour meeting. Formally, the initiative is already cleared to collect signatures and would need to surpass two million valid endorsements to move forward.

Politically, Petro has framed the constituent assembly as a central plank for the months ahead. While he has repeatedly defended Colombia’s 1991 Constitution, he has said the process would aim to “deepen” what was defined then, and he has tied its prospects to the outcome of the March 8 congressional elections, arguing the newly elected Congress will be able to enable or block the call.

Petro has also used the issue as a banner against Colombia’s traditional political class. In December, after lawmakers rejected a tax reform proposal, he said: “The country must decide whether it continues under a kind of congress members so parasitic they will condemn your children, or whether it decides to change its Congress.” He also wrote that the goal should be to “unleash constituent power” and “isolate the political mafia,” and said he plans to file a bill before the next Congress on July 20, in a public event and with Bolívar’s sword.

Alongside Petro, ministers of finance, trade, culture, mines, education and housing, as well as senior presidency officials, also signed the sheet, according to the same report. Justice Minister Jorge Iván Cuervo, recently sworn in, did not. Signature collection is expected to continue through the final stretch ahead of the March 8 elections and into the presidential campaign, with the first round scheduled for May 31.