'Calm down, it was you who was decertified': Iván Duque responds to President Gustavo Petro after his speech.

Former President Iván Duque responded to President Gustavo Petro a few minutes after the presidential address concluded on September 17. In it, the president compared the achievements of the two governments in eradicating illicit crops.

" Calm down and breathe, you're the one who was decertified ," Duque began by saying in a tweet from X.

Following this, the former president began listing the reasons why Colombia was decertified under Gustavo Petro's administration. Some of these reasons included " dismantling manual eradication groups , allowing the exponential growth of crops, reducing seizures to their lowest percentage of potential production , and turning drug traffickers into peacemakers."

Furthermore, Duque accused the head of state of promoting the dismantling of aerial spraying and the elimination of forced eradication, which, in the words of the former president, weakened "the fight against drug trafficking."

"Now it's your turn to reap what you sow, because between 2018 and 2022 we were certified. Dedicate yourself to governing, you have less than a year left, and take responsibility for your decisions, " Duque lashed out, concluding his response.

Minutes before Iván Duque's response to the speech, President Gustavo Petro published a tweet, expanding on what he said in his speech to the Colombian people, in which he lashed out against his predecessor.

"In 2020, you forcibly eradicated 130,000 hectares of coca leaves , killing thousands of peasant families," the president said.

Petro not only questioned Duque's figures, but also pointed out that he was "the Colombian president who has had the most hectares of coca leaf planted in a single year to date."

The head of state based this accusation by questioning the results of the anti-drug policy during Iván Duque's administration and asserting that the official figures do not correspond to reality.

According to Petro, in 2020, only 9,000 hectares of coca were reported to have been reduced , despite the government's claims to have eradicated 130,000 hectares with glyphosate. "They planted about 100,000 more hectares and stole the glyphosate that was supposed to cover 30,000 more hectares , which is why they reported them, when in reality, they weren't eradicated," he said.

The president added that in 2021 , plantings grew by 61,000 net hectares, and that when he received the country in 2022, he found a total of 230,000 hectares of coca leaf, "the highest figure in history."

The president maintained that forced coca eradication has been counterproductive , as instead of reducing crops, it actually causes them to grow. He explained that by uprooting the plants, the roots allow the crops to sprout again, and that the mafia also finances new crops in areas where farmers cannot grow legal crops. "The state doesn't come to help them, but to kill them, burn down their houses, or imprison them," he criticized.

In contrast, he argued that his government replaced that "failed" scheme with a voluntary crop substitution program, which has already linked 25,000 hectares of land since 2024. According to him, this model requires regaining the trust of farmers, a trust that—he claimed—was destroyed during the previous term and that his administration is beginning to rebuild.

Petro added that this trust is also based on political legitimacy: "The greatest trust a society has is achieved when its president has nothing to do with the mafia," he said, accusing Iván Duque of having allowed himself to be financed by alias "El Nene."

María Paula Rodríguez Rozo

Journalist for the LATEST NEWS EDITORIAL