They came by the thousands to listen to a man with glasses, a bulletproof vest and protected by shields who promises an era of changes without revenge. On his way to becoming perhaps the first left-wing ruler of Colombia, Gustavo Petro he wants to placate the fear that he raises in a fort on the right.
One week before the election that could give him victory, Petro, 62 years old and favorite in all the polls, arrives in an armored vehicle to the back of a platform. As soon as he descends, a praetorian guard closes around him. His security was recently tightened as his team suspected they wanted to kill him.
The viral photo of Petro at another rally, surrounded by armored shields through which he could barely poke his head, brought to mind the electoral violence of the 20th century, when five presidential candidates were assassinated: three leftists, one of them a former guerrilla like Petro, and two liberals.
Petro believes that he can win on May 29, although other polls indicate that he will have to contest a ballot on June 19, for which he is also a favorite.
Smiling, the senator climbs a ladder to meet a river of people who waited for him for hours in the rain on Carabobo Avenue in Medellín, Colombia’s second city traditionally hostile to the left and that communes with the creed: God, family and property.
It is also the birthplace of his nemesis, former president Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010) and former mayor Federico Gutiérrez, his likely right-wing opponent in a possible second round.
Petro, plaid shirt, casual gray pants, fresh face, receives the microphone. She weaves idea after idea without being disturbed by the harangues that encourage her victory in the first turn. During 53 minutes of fiery speech, she questions the governments “oligarchs”, “thieves” and “exclusionary”. There are 200 years in which “40 families” have “inherited” power from father to son, she claims.
In a city still martyred by the shadow of Pablo Escobar, the dejected cocaine baron, Petro compares illegal drug trafficking with the “poisonous” economies of coal and oil, whose exploration he assures will stop to make way for clean energy before the climate emergency.
All his projects (the “expansion” of agriculture and industry, taxes on the richest, financing with flexible credits of the popular economy, etc.) anticipate a breakdown and not a little resistance. Nothing, he stresses, will “remain the same” under his rule.
The public cheers him on, but the candidate who promises nothing more than “to change the history of Colombia” offers his first olive branch: “We are not going to take revenge, we are not going to do what they did to us, we are not going to persecute your families”.
fears and illusions
Among its enthusiasts are university students resentful of the police repression a year ago when social discontent broke out in the midst of the pandemic. The UN documented 46 deaths, 28 of them allegedly at the hands of the security forces.
There are also blacks and indigenous people who have come from far away, unemployed and retired. They are an intergenerational mass that, according to their leader, drop the word change for every two sentences.
“The reforms are going to be necessary, Colombia needs a break from all that traditional politics that has governed all its life,” says Vanesa Muñoz, 23, an architecture student who says she is “outraged” with the state response to the demonstrations. massive protests against the government of Iván Duque.
At another point in the rally, Lizardo Cuñapa, a 21-year-old indigenous person, assures that he will make his debut at the polls to support Petrobecause it has “negotiated with the communities” so that they have “housing and education.”
Petro has visited 100 public squares since August, but Medellín’s is one of the most challenging. Here he lost in 2018 by almost 500,000 votes against Duque, sponsored by Uribe. The image of “Fico” Gutiérrez dominates the electoral landscape today.
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It is common to hear traders and carriers say that the Petro will encourage “class hatred”. They fear that he will derail the economy with his “expropriations” – which the leftist swore not to do before a notary – but, above all, they do not forgive him for his past as a guerrilla member of the M-19, a movement in which he was a militant for 12 years before signing peace in 1990.
Away from their ears, Petro instead exploits the unpopularity of the government and the decline of Uribe (2002-2010), investigated in a criminal case and whom he ironically mentions in his speech as “the accused.”
However, he leaves a new olive branch before leaving the stage: Anyone “who has voted for Uribe in this century or for the one Uribe said (…) is not going to be persecuted by us. They are going to be respected in their goods, in their lives, in their dignities”.
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