Iván Duque
Iván Duque Márquez is a Colombian politician and lawyer who served as the president of Colombia from 2018 to 2022. He was elected as the candidate from the Democratic Centre Party in the 2018 Colombian presidential election. Backed by his mentor, former president and powerful senator Álvaro Uribe, he was elected despite having been relatively unknown a year before the election. He ran on a platform that included opposing Juan Manuel Santos' peace agreement with the FARC guerrilla group. After Duque's term came to an end, he was succeeded by Gustavo Petro on 7 August 2022, after Petro won the runoff round in the 2022 Colombian presidential election.
Despite personally opposing the peace agreement with the FARC, Duque did not cancel it when in office. During the Venezuelan refugee crisis, Duque had an open door policy toward Venezuelans, allowing them to settle in the country and allowing around 1.7 million refugees to gain protected status in Venezuela. Another major issue that spanned part of his term was the COVID-19 pandemic in Colombia. His rule was marked by protests, the 2019–2020 Colombian protests caused by those who opposed corruption and income inequality, as well as the 2021 Colombian protests against a proposed tax measure. His approval rating had declined, being as low as 30% in his last year in office.
Life and career
Duque was born in Bogotá to a wealthy political family originally from the Colombian town of Gómez Plata, Antioquia. He is the son of Juliana Márquez Tono, a political scientist and Iván Duque Escobar, a powerful local political leader who was Governor of Antioquia, auditor in the United Nations, Minister of Mines and Energy, and head of the National Registry of Civil Status in the Government of Andrés Pastrana. Duque's siblings are Andrés and María Paula Duque.Duque attended Colegio Rochester but obtained his high-school diploma from Colegio Winston-Salem in Bogota. He graduated in 2000 with a law degree from Sergio Arboleda University in Bogotá. He holds an LLM in International economic law from American University and a Masters in Public Policy Management from Georgetown University, Washington D.C.
He began his professional career in 1999 as a consultant in CAF – Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean and later served as an advisor at the Colombian Ministry of Finance and Public Credit during the government of Andrés Pastrana.
Subsequently, he was appointed by Juan Manuel Santos, future president and then-Minister of Finance, as one of Colombia's representatives at the Inter-American Development Bank, a post he held between 2001 and 2013. There he served as chief of the Division of Culture, Solidarity, and Creativity.
Duque also served as international advisor of former President Álvaro Uribe Vélez. Between 2010 and 2011, he was a consultant at the United Nations in the Panel of Inquiry appointed by the Secretary-General for the Incident of the Gaza Flotilla that occurred on 31 May 2010, between Israel and Turkey, known as Mavi Marmara.
Political background
Duque returned to Colombia to become a candidate for the Senate in the legislative elections of 2014, for the Partido Centro Democrático which split away from the ruling governing party after Juan Manuel Santos opened peace negotiations with the FARC. This new party campaigned against the new peace agreement and the Santos Government, and was led by right wing former president Uribe.Uribe created his own political party and presented himself and a list of hand-picked political allies as candidates for the office of Congressman in a closed list, which meant that people could not vote for an individual congressman but had to vote for the party as a whole in both the upper and lower chamber elections. Duque was included in the number seven spot of the closed off list for the Senate and thus was elected senator.
During his time as a senator, he was the author of four laws:
- Law 1822 of 4 January 2017, increasing the maternity leave from 14 to 18 weeks, so mothers could spend more time with their newborn children, a benefit that was also extended to adoptive mothers.
- Law 1831 of 2 May 2017, for the availability of defibrillators in public facilities and places of high public influx, to save lives, since heart attacks are the leading cause of death in Colombia.
- Law 1809 of 29 September 2016, for the use of advanced severance payments for educational insurance, so that more families can send their children to the university.
- Law 1834 of 23 May 2017, the "Orange Law" for the promotion, development and protection of the creative and cultural industries.
2018 presidential election
On 27 May 2018, Duque earned the most votes in the first round of the presidential election with over 39% of the vote. Duque was elected President of Colombia on 17 June 2018 after defeating Gustavo Petro 54% to 42% in the second round.
Presidency (2018–2022)
Duque was sworn in on 7 August 2018 at Bogotá's Bolívar Square. Duque's government prioritized legality and entrepreneurship, among other areas.In 2020, after the drug lord "Ñeñe" Hernandez was murdered in Brazil, some audios of him conspiring to give money to Duque's party in order to buy votes for his election were published in what is known as the "Ñeñepolítica".
Duque's term concluded on 7 August 2022 and he was succeeded by Gustavo Petro.
Domestic policy
Opposed to the peace agreement signed in 2016 with the FARC guerrilla group, Duque, nevertheless stated at the time of his election that he had no intention of "smashing it to bits". As president, he tried to eliminate certain points of the agreement. His government sought to weaken the Special Jurisdiction for Peace and cut the budget of the Truth Commission and the Unit for the Search for Disappeared Persons by 30%. The government also promoted generals involved in extrajudicial executions, appoints controversial figures to key positions and halts negotiations with the other guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army.Through its National Development Plan 2018–2022, the Colombian government planned to revive the country's gold and copper markets. In addition, 161 new oil drilling sites were planned for 2022, four times more than the 46 existing in 2018. Hydraulic fracturing was legalised in 2019. The plan was widely criticised by environmentalists, who considered it dangerous for the environment and the climate, and offering the country's non-renewable resources to foreign multinationals. The share of extraction profits paid to the state has dropped to 0.4% for gold and silver, and 3.27% for open-cast coal mines. The plan also threatened indigenous communities, whose territories and resources were under threat. In mid-2019 the Pan-American Highway was blocked for several weeks by the mobilisation of thousands of indigenous people in the department of Cauca.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Colombian government created the "Prevention and Action" television programme, in which Duque communicated with citizens through a national network, with the Colombian public and private media, broadcasting every day at 6pm. The program enjoyed great popularity initially, since it was shown as an effective means to timely communicate the news about the measures used to contain the spread COVID-19. His approval rating increased at the start of the pandemic, as a result. However, the program was extended over time and lost popularity, as there were no constant news about the pandemic; the program mutated to a space where Duque talked to the public, however the program continued during the start of the 2021 protests, Duque continued to present the television program, which generated strong criticism. By May 2021, as protests continue and the unemployment was out of control, the programme ended.
In 2020, the defence minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo died of COVID-19, and was replaced by Diego Molano. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, GDP in Colombia decreased by 6.8% in 2020, the worst drop in the country's GDP in history.
Public safety
Insecurity in Colombia has increased during Iván Duque's presidency. In four years there have been more than 260 massacres that have left more than 1,100 people dead. Violence against social leaders in the territories has increased substantially. As of 4 June 2022, 930 social leaders had been assassinated. In addition, 245 former FARC combatants who took advantage of the Peace Accords have been assassinated during the Duque government.War on drugs
Duque made the war on drugs a central issue of his presidency and called his country "a partner for all of the Western Hemisphere in the fight against drugs." Despite his efforts, however, cocaine production reached record highs during his presidency. With a potential output of 1,400 metric tons in 2022 according to the UN, Colombia remained the world's leading producer of the drug.Protests
The 2019–2020 Colombian protests were a collection of protests that have occurred since 21 November 2019. Hundreds of thousands of Colombians demonstrated to support the Colombian peace process and against the Duque government. Demonstrators criticise also the government's desire to make the labour market more flexible, to reduce the public pension fund in favour of private entities and to raise the retirement age. The unions also protested against the tax reform aimed at reducing the taxes paid by companies and against the planned privatisation of public companies such as the oil company Ecopetrol and the electricity company Cenit. The army was deployed in the main cities of the country and a curfew was introduced. The unpopularity rate of Iván Duque reached almost 70%.The 2021 Colombian protests began on 28 April 2021 against increased taxes proposed by the Duque government amid the pandemic.