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Bogota (AFP) – Thousands of demonstrators protested this Wednesday in the main cities of Colombia in rejection of the reforms that President Gustavo Petro, the first leftist to govern the country, intends to implement.
Dressed in white and with tricolor flags, thousands of people marched through the streets of Bogotá, Medellín (northwest), Cali (southwest) and other cities in the country.
“(We protest) against the policies of Petro who believes he is the absolute owner of the truth and does not take any opinion into account,” pensioner Ricardo Escobar told AFP from Plaza de Bolívar, in downtown Bogotá, on political heart of the country.
Thousands of people gathered in this square to show their opposition to the reforms that Petro plans to present to Congress in the coming weeks.
Petro came to power on August 7 with an ambitious battery of reforms with which he aspires to do a 180-degree turn to the health, labor and pension systems, in addition to trying to put an end to the conflict that the State maintains against guerrillas and drug traffickers. which in half a century has claimed nine million victims.
“We are completely against the reforms that the president wants to impose (…) with manipulated information,” said Alma Gómez, a Bogota retiree.
Ruled by the right for more than 200 years, the country is divided after Petro’s first six months in power.
protests and counter-protests
Less large demonstrations than those of Wednesday asked the day before to approve the president’s reforms, after he asked the public to approve his government project.
Very active on social networks and in the public square, Petro explained some of the bills he wants to promote in a long speech before his followers in Bogotá.
If Congress does not approve his initiatives, he will continue to call marches, he anticipated from the presidential house in an intervention far from the conciliatory tone he had in his first months in office.
The opposition called its mobilization for Tuesday, but postponed it to avoid sympathizers and critics of the Government coinciding.
“Every time he (Petro) speaks, it seems to me that he wants to be a dictator, every hour he is threatening us,” Rodrigo Victoria, a 65-year-old ex-military officer and merchant who was marching in the capital on Wednesday, told AFP.
Petro, as he already warned in the campaign, wants the State and public funds to have more weight and thus prevent bankers and workers with the highest salaries, in the health and pension systems, from benefiting.
“This government wants to take our savings and wants to raffle them, put them at risk (…) we can have a pension this month, but next month we don’t know,” complained Olga Sandoval, a 60-year-old retiree.
Peace, health, oil
“(Petro) puts the trafficker before the merchant, the criminal before the businessman,” read a banner displayed by a woman in Cali.
The opponents, in addition to criticizing the policy known as “total peace” with which the Government tries to demobilize rebels, drug traffickers and guerrillas who continue the fight after the Peace Agreement signed with the FARC guerrillas in 2016, reject the reforms that seek to strengthen the State of a country with high rates of corruption.
According to the Minister of Justice, the Executive plans to reduce the penalties for drug traffickers who dismantle their organizations and other benefits such as keeping 10% of their fortunes.
Other initiatives by the president have sparked debate in recent days. Petro wants to modify the Bogotá metro project so that it is underground and not elevated as it is being built.
On the other hand, it plans to speed up the transition to clean energy and stop exploring new oil wells, which worries a sector that accounts for 30% of the country’s exports.
Late last year, Congress passed a tax bill that raises taxes for the wealthiest. The opposition criticizes that the resources of the State will not supply enough for the multiple reforms of the Government.
