President Gustavo Petro delivers a speech from the balcony of the Casa de Nariño on May 1 with his wife Verónica Alcocer. Nathalia Angarita
On the day Gustavo Petro assumed the presidency last August, he announced that “Colombia is not Bogotá” and that he would work to ensure that the state was “present” in every corner of the country. A promise to break with the capital’s centralism, which partly consisted of continuing the left-wing wave that brought him to government until the regional elections on October 29. The original idea was that a strong historical pact – for which 50.5% of citizens voted in the second round a year ago – would determine the president’s power in the regions and cities in order to decide the next three years in the government’s favor. Having allies outside Bogotá is crucial for a president in need of support, but the capital has become his last lifeline.
Petro is aware that only a victory for his candidate in the capital, Gustavo Bolívar, could save him from a devastating electoral setback. The Historical Pact, a coalition of various parties and movements, was unable to reach agreements on the nomination of individual candidates in nine of the country’s 10 main cities and does not have options in the main governorates. Therefore, the president has decided to concentrate everything on Bogotá. His power is to try to save the furniture. The promise to decentralize the country will have to wait at least a few more days.
The president already warned last week at the United Nations, in what has become the most famous sentence of his speech and the core of all memes, that his intention was to “spread the virus of life through the stars of the universe,” which is exactly what he intended so far he gets started in his own country. This Wednesday, marches will take place all over Colombia, promoted and supported by the government without any restrictions, with the presence of ministers in the streets and a speech by Petro himself. “This September 27th, we move through life. We stand up for the rights of the people, we stand up for Colombia, the world power of life,” the president announced on X – formerly Twitter. This “for life” and for government march will serve to gauge the mood of the left just a month before the elections.
The next day, the president, who has promised to end centralism, will attend with his government in meetings with citizens in the capitals of Kennedy, Engativá and Suba, in an act christened as “Government with the People” and which will follow According to the presidency, a format similar to that held three months ago in the department of La Guajira will take place. Then the president decided to move his cabinet to this region marked by high poverty and malnutrition for a week and to govern from there, a project that was supposed to continue in Arauca but was pushed through at the last minute by Bogotá without a transfer. .
Reactions against the president, while frequent these days, have increased sharply again among those who see in his actions a clear intention to support Bolívar’s candidacy. The constitution prohibits proselytizing by the government and denies that this is the reason for the change in plans. Bolívar himself, who has announced that he will lead the march in Bogotá on Wednesday, has assured that he will not take part in the events on Thursday and Friday. “To want to prohibit the president from going where he has to go seems very petty to me,” defends the candidate in the face of criticism from the other mayoral candidates who reacted angrily to what they consider to be a covert electoral strategy.
“Bogotanos and Bogotanas are not idiots. If these meetings are political in nature and they are used to promote the candidacy of Gustavo Bolívar, it will be noticed and voters will punish them,” said Carlos Fernando Galán, first in the polls. The former director of the National Police, retired general Jorge Luis Vargas, also a candidate, called for a counter-protest: “They want to plant a bomb in Bogotá. We already know the Gustavos are shameless [Petro y Bolívar] They prepare a shot. “I call on you to respond with a big bang.”
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On October 29, Petro, in addition to the capital, also participates in the development of his policy. His success, since his party will have no territorial bishops, will depend on the agreements he makes with the new governors and mayors, crucial to the implementation of the government-approved National Development Plan, the axis of his mandate. A diversity of parties unprecedented in Colombia – up to 36 political organizations are competing, compared to 17 in 2017 – will use the territorial power of the Petro-era as a counterweight or support to the government. Without the Historic Pact, the president will have to work hard to forge alliances that will allow the state to be “present” in every corner of the country, because as he said a year ago: “Colombia is not Bogota.”
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