The reflection Colombia has been gazing at over the past few months has turned out to be a mirage. In a country riddled with half a century of war and deep political polarization, the idea that a former left-wing guerrilla could rule hand-in-hand with traditional conservative parties is dead. Nine months into Gustavo Petro’s tenure, the chips are back in place. The president calls for mobilization, the peasants, the workers, he attacks the neoliberal elites. The right-wing accuse him of threatening democracy, skipping the institutional framework and wanting to perpetuate himself in power. In politics, Colombia has become Colombia again, only now, for the first time in the country’s modern history, the president is the one who is starting the revolution.
It’s not easy for Petro to “change countries” in four years’ time, as he promises, but at least he’ll be more comfortable now. The coalition with which the government started only worked at the beginning. After the tax reform was carried out quite successfully and in record time, the agreement with the right-wing parties faltered. The President began to despair. Petro has no time to lose, he needs results. It took decades of opposition to come to power, and his government’s achievements will shape the future of the left in a country with a conservative tradition.
The idea of a concerted government was great for a Colombia where, despite bloody inequalities in many sectors, there isn’t that sense of urgency that Petro has, that desire to turn the country inside out. Poverty tops 40%, but macroeconomic reality paints a stable scenario in which business, political and economic elites thrive; Facts such as the decline in unemployment are relieving the burden on small and medium-sized businesses. The majority are sure that reforms are needed, but resistance to deep change is stronger.
The President knows exactly what he wants to do, he has spent years designing reforms to reshape the pillars of the state, he wants to change the health care system, do labor reform, get another pension, get a fairer distribution of the country. On the one hand, because he also wants to crush the ELN – the last active guerrillas in Latin America – achieve an unknown peace throughout the Colombian territory, change the world paradigm of the war on drugs or bring about a solution to the Venezuelan crisis. Almost nothing, which is why the negotiations with the traditional political clans that end up distorting his reforms in Congress are driving him to despair.
Now he has won back the usual Petro, who wants to see his people, accustoms the left to the streets and protests. Those left cold by the pragmatic Petro of the beginning left government economics or agrarian reform in the hands of moderate liberals. Last week he sacked seven of 19 ministers, including those who were part of the right-wing party quotas that secured him a majority in Congress. He surrounded himself with leftists and former colleagues from his time as mayor of Bogotá (2012-2015). Now, between the bases and essences of the Liberal Party, led by the Anti-Petrista and the powerful, albeit in his hour, César Gaviria, he is looking for the votes he needs in the chamber for his reforms to survive. It’s not easy for him.
Therefore, the support of the street is necessary. This Monday, Labor Day, he sought his government’s first major mobilization. After the cabinet reshuffle, he announced a speech from the balcony of the presidential palace. He had already done it in February, but the date was decaffeinated at the time. Now the unions did the rest and the President addressed a crowd that cheered him and booed his opponents. That’s what he likes and is good at, it was on the streets where his political figure grew up. The plan is based on talking for hours to stuff his own with leftist proclamations while driving his opponents insane and lulling those who ignore politics with his monotonous tone.
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In the hour his tirade lasted this time, Petro brought back the campaign candidate and opposition leader of the past. “Wanting to limit reforms can lead to revolution,” he warned. And he urged his people to mobilize to promote his work in the institutions. He wants to break Gaviria in order to win over the handful of liberals who could give him a majority in Congress while the youth, retirees, farmers and the poor cheer on his reforms from the streets. Using this ancient recipe, Petro is trying to unravel a mandate in which he has already launched dozens of networks but has yet to collect anything.
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