Colombia President Gustavo Petro appointed a new interior minister in another attempt to push forward his government’s reform agenda.
Petro announced the appointment of Juan Fernando Cristo, a senior Liberal Party politician, on social media platform X.
Cristo will replace Luis Fernando Velasco, another senior liberal as part of a cabinet reshuffle.
The president said he appointed Cristo to “advance social reforms in Congress” and “articulate compliance with the peace agreement” between former President Juan Manuel Santos and the now-defunct FARC guerrilla group in 2016.
As Santos’ interior minister, Cristo successfully pushed legislation to Congress that allowed victims of the armed conflict to claim compensation.
Petro also said his new interior minister will promote “the social and political bridges for the national agreement that promotes regulatory changes and uses the constituent power.”
The president has been promoting a constituent assembly, which would have the authority to rewrite the constitution, for months.
Petro coined the constituent assembly because of congressional resistance to some of his reform proposals and State failures to effectively implement the 2016 peace accord.
