Petro calls for Constituent Assembly
June 23, 2025
Colombian President Gustavo Petro said he will include a referendum on calling a National Constituent Assembly in the next year’s legislative elections, reports EFE.
The objective is to “build a social state of law, social justice, deep democracy of the people and peace,” he said Friday, in a post on X.
Talks of a Constituent Assembly have circulated for months, with Petro and his closest allies suggesting the need to rewrite the 1991 Constitution, notes EFE.
But a number of experts are wary about the need for constitutional reform, and portray the push as “authoritarian,” — see La Silla Vacía, Infobae and also La Silla Vacía.
Petro said he had already convoked a referendum on the issue, though formally Congress must approve such a consultation, which then passes to the constitutional court before being put to popular vote. (Bloomberg)
Petro is invoking a symbolic push for reform, according to El País — the reference is the popular demand for reform in 1986, when the then-reigning constitution lacked a mechanism to convoke a Constituent Assembly (which the current constitution does).
The point might not be reform, but popular approval for a foundering coalition with a grim electoral outlook, reports El País.
The announcement came after Congress passed a labor reform bill that fulfilled much of Petro’s agenda — a move backtracked on an earlier rejection of labor reform, after Petro had threatened to put the issue, which was likely to be popular, directly to voters.
Also last week, the Constitutional Court ordered the Chamber of Representatives to reconsider Petro’s pension reform bill, to correct a procedural defect. (La Silla Vacía)
More Colombia
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Regional Relations
Ecuador and Peru are considering sending foreign-born criminal detainees to El Salvador’s prisons, following in the footsteps of the Trump administration, reports Washington Post—although many of those sent by the US were not criminals. (Via Americas Migration Brief.)
In Latin America, Paraguay and Argentina’s right-wing governments voiced strong support for Israel in the midst of the escalating conflict with Iran. (Buenos Aires Herald, Mercopress)
Brazil’s leftist Lula da Silva administration strongly condemned the military attacks by Israel and the United States on Iranian nuclear facilities, labeling them as violations of sovereignty and international law. (Mercopress)
The Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed its deep concern about the increase in tensions between the United States and Iran, demanding that all parties involved urgently resume the path of negotiation as the only responsible and lasting solution. (Telesur)
“Iran is scheduled to send a delegation to the BRICS summit in Brazil next month. How this BRICS summit handles Iran has the potential to be an enormous flashpoint in US-Brazil relations,” notes James Bosworth in todays Latin America Risk Report. “If the conference gives Iran a big platform to make its case to the world as the other members of the BRICS stand beside it, the Trump administration is going to be furious at the Lula government.”
More broadly, in the context of the conflict, if there are no Iranian attacks in the Western Hemisphere in coming weeks, “it’s time to reassess the threat. If Iran and its proxies can’t hit targets in the Western Hemisphere now, when it matters most, then they are a paper tiger without the capabilities to do so. At that point, it will be clear that the threat has been overstated. Either way, we should learn from the experience of the coming weeks. Very rarely in this sort of international security analysis do you get such a clear test of a hypothesis,” writes Bosworth. (Latin America Risk Report)
Brazil
Chinese tech giants are vying for Brazil’s markets — “Chinese interest in Brazil comes as the two countries deepen their economic ties. The overall value of trade between China and Brazil roughly doubled over the past decade, as Chinese companies bought Brazilian soybeans and consumers in Brazil bought Chinese cars and electronics,” reports the New York Times.
Hyper-realistic dolls in Brazil have sparked social controversy and a slew of bills aimed at preventing owners from accessing public services aimed at children — though there is no evidence that anybody actually has. The kerfuffle shows how right-wing politicians in Brazil leverage trending topics, according to Isabela Kalil, a political science and anthropology professor at the FESPSP university. (Guardian)
At least eight people died in a hot-air balloon accident in southern Brazil this weekend. (Guardian)
Mexico
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has claimed a sharp drop in homicides in the first eight months of her term — 25% from last October to this May. The achievement is built on new national guard deployments to hotspots and bolstered intelligence capabilities. (AFP)
“With the ongoing trade tensions between the US and Mexico, Spain has charged ahead as Mexico’s main foreign investor so far this year,” according to the Mexico Political Economist. “Spanish companies have a different approach to the Mexican market, which they do not see as a manufacturing base for further exports. Instead, they see Mexico as a market in itself.”
The incoming president of Mexico’s Supreme Court, Hugo Aguilar Ortiz, exemplifies how judicial reform sought to make judgeships attainable to those traditionally excluded from positions of power, reports the New York Times. Ortiz, an Indigenous activist, said he aimed to prioritize the rule of law and the needs of Indigenous peoples as chief justice, citing his own path to the Supreme Court.
Argentina
Argentine President Javier Milei reformed the federal policy by decree, giving the force new powers, including the ability to detain people for up to ten hours without a warrant and to carry out crime “prevention” through cyber espionage of what it calls “digital public spaces” without obtaining permission from the courts, reports Josefina Salomon in The Weekly Latin America.
Paraguay
Narcotraffickers and loggers have destroyed six percent of Paraguay’s biodiverse Mbaracayú forest, according to a new investigation. Indigenous children are also being recruited to work in the weed plantations. (The Paraguay Post)
Panama
Panama has declared an emergency in its main banana-producing region, after shops were looted and buildings vandalised in ongoing protests over a pension reform. (BBC)
Migration
Challenges facing return migrants heading south through Panama include limited resources to help those without the means to continue travel. “Aid groups fear the daily rate of 40 to 100 asylum seekers and migrants arriving in Miramar and Palenque could soar in the coming months: Migrants they are assisting say thousands more are stranded in countries further north, trying to make enough money to continue their journeys south,” reports The New Humanitarian. (Via Americas Migration Brief)
Culture Corner
Esther Phillips, Barbados poet laureate, says her work’s “ultimate goal” is to achieve justice for those who suffered at hands of European colonizers - Guardian