A mixture of patriotism and indignation seeks to win over the streets of Colombia, a territory where Gustavo Petro was king for years. “We love the military!”, “We defend democracy!”, “We support the prosecutor!”, harangued a man in downtown Bogotá, this Tuesday. The public, carrying the country’s flags, responded to each sentence with a firm: “We are the majority!”. It was a march in which hundreds spoke out against the president’s social reforms and in favor of the conservative magazine Week, and in which there is still some paranoia against the “Soviet dictatorship”. “Colombia is not from the left, Colombia is from the right,” harangued a woman in the march dubbed “We are the majority” by those who called it. “Get out Petro”, she heard herself over and over again. Right-wing politicians abounded in the mobilization, but those from the center were scarce, as was seen in several cities in the country.
The opposition did not manage to be the majority in the 2022 presidential elections, nor in the first year of operation of a Legislative without a majority party, but this Tuesday it already seems to move in the streets at least the equivalent of the masses that the president moves . According to the National Police, 30,000 people demonstrated in Bogotá and 90,000 throughout the country. That is a victory for this group of citizens who seek to make themselves feel like the majority, and who are optimistic about the possibility of defeating the forces close to the government in the October regional elections. There, really, they will test if they are the majority, although these elections are usually defined with diverse local logics and by candidacies only secondarily linked to the big parties.
“The party is gaining a lot of strength,” says a smiling Felipe Borda, 24, a candidate for mayor of the Uribista Centro Democrático party who hopes the balance will shift to the right in Bogotá. It is a sunny morning, ideal weather for a demonstration, and Borda joins the militants carrying a giant cardboard elephant along Carrera Séptima. The pachyderm evokes the call process 8,000, the scandal that in practice politically froze the government of former President Ernesto Samper (1994-1998) when it was revealed that his campaign had received money from drug trafficking. Borda and the public of the day are convinced that Petro’s campaign received something equivalent, as suggested by a leaked audio from former ambassador Armando Benedetti. “Samper is 8,000 / with Petro 15,000 / tired of the left / let’s save the country”, sang the protesters who were heading to the Plaza de Bolívar.
The toughest political scandal that Petro has faced took center stage in this march. “Either we unite or they commit suicide,” read a poster referring to the police colonel linked to the scandal and who was found dead in his car less than two weeks ago. “The money belonged to Petro,” says another poster that believes in the version of a reserved source that he assured, precisely to the magazine Week, that the colonel had told him that the president gave 3,000 million pesos (about 720,000 dollars) to his then chief of staff, Laura Sarabia. “There are 3,000 million reasons for this government to end,” said another poster. This is the march in which the president is, for many, corrupt and little else.
Unlike the mobilization that was organized two weeks ago in support of Petro, in this one there were no large unions or student groups. A few anti-abortion groups were collecting signatures for a referendum, while some militants from right-wing opposition parties (the Democratic Center and Radical Change) harangued the crowd. Alejandro Ospina, a union leader, was an exception. “Those other unions only applaud the government,” says this man who is president of the Union of Workers of the Oil and Energy Industry of Colombia (UTIPEC), a union in the hydrocarbons sector that brings together some 3,000 people. He does not like the labor reform, nor the hydrocarbons policy, nor the president’s attacks on the press. Close to him, another unionist harangues: “Petro has sold us the version that there is a soft coup against him and that is fiction of 21st century socialism.”
newsletter
Analysis of current affairs and the best stories from Colombia, every week in your mailbox
RECEIVE THE
Milena, Mónica and Adriana participate for the first time in a march against Petro. On previous occasions they believed that not many people were going to attend and they were not encouraged. But this time Milena decided that she had to do more than complain on social networks. After receiving a call through a WhatsApp group, she convinced her colleagues. “We don’t want our children to emigrate” or “All the scandals come from people who work with him” are some of the phrases that are heard. They affirm that they do not want Petro to leave, but rather to listen to the opposition and change his speech. Although later they qualify: “It’s not that we want it, it’s that if Francia Márquez leaves, and that would be the total end.”
The three recognize that young people are relatively absent in the march, compared to the mobilizations in favor of the Government. They point out that his children and nephews were excited about the change to the left, despite the fact that they told them not to trust Petro because they knew him from his time as mayor of Bogotá. For them, young people “are quieter” at family gatherings, although they still do not openly admit that “they were wrong.” “Why can you go out and I can’t?” Milena’s daughter told her mother this morning, referring to the ban that her mother imposed on her from going out to protest during the 2021 National Strike. “Because we don’t we break the Transmilenio or shops and we do not go against the Police or the Army”, says Milena who responded to him.
The march is not for those who regretted having voted for Petro, but for those who never supported him. Many comment that they know people who repent, but those who are present are the ones who answer again and again that they never supported it. “When he was mayor of Bogotá, we already saw what he was like,” says a man who hands out banners against the reforms and wiretapping, part of the scandal that grips the government.
However, there are some more moderate ones. Senator David Luna (Cambio Radical) differentiates in conversation with this newspaper between the first months of the Government and the last weeks. He compares the “statesman president” and dialogue at the beginning with the current “activist president”, while holding a sign that denounces that the Executive “takes away the liberties” of Colombians. For him, Petro has radicalized due to the frustration of not being able to impose his social reforms: “The idea of a soft coup is a strategy. He blames others because the reforms do not work out for him ”.
Upon reaching the Plaza de Bolívar, there is a large stage in front of the Palacio Liévano, seat of the Mayor’s Office of Bogotá. Several politicians and civil society leaders go up there. Among them are the uribista senators Miguel Uribe, Ciro Ramírez and Paloma Valencia; two former ministers of the Government of Iván Duque, the also politicians of the Democratic Center Diego Molano and Nancy Patricia Gutiérrez; the former mayor of Bogotá Enrique Peñalosa; the representatives Carolina Arbeláez (Cambio Radical) and Marelen Castillo (League of Anti-Corruption Rulers); and the businessman Pierre Onzaga. Politicians took a greater role than in the February march called by the opposition. Supporters, however, were already beginning to withdraw as they spoke.
The messages of these opposition leaders, even without a clear referent, were diverse. “I want to ask President Petro to govern with generosity, and without the arrogance that is characterizing him,” exclaimed Senator Valencia. Meanwhile, Molano called for progress with the construction of the Bogotá Metro and Peñalosa criticized the fact that environmental goals are prioritized, according to him, over the fight against poverty. Castillo, a former candidate for vice president, differed from Francia Márquez: “I am Afro and I am happy, I am Afro and I do not victimize myself.”
Absent from the march, as from the daily political scene, was former President Álvaro Uribe, the voice that many in the Plaza de Bolívar miss when they call themselves the majority. “He will have his reasons”, they say among the crowd.
subscribe here to the EL PAÍS newsletter on Colombia and receive all the key information on the country’s current affairs.
#Petro #Colombian #opposition #fights #majority #streets