The management of the protests breaks the bridges between the center and the Colombian left

A protester throws a stone during the protests in Bogotá on June 29.NATHALIA ANGARITA / Reuters

After two months of protests, marches and riots, the social outbreak against the government of Iván Duque has subsided in most of Colombia, but protesters still take to the streets in some parts of Bogotá. The excesses in these outbreaks have led to a rupture between the progressive sectors. In this still heated environment, the mayor of the capital, Claudia López, one of the main opposition figures, has burned the bridges with Gustavo Petro, the left-wing presidential candidate, whom she has accused of promoting violence in the demonstrations.

Next year, Colombia holds presidential and legislative elections.

These elections have long permeated any discussion.

Also the response to the crisis unleashed by the social outbreak against the Duque government and the repression with which the protesters crashed.

Petro, loser of the second presidential round in 2018 against Duque, is the rival to beat.

The mayor, for her part, is the most visible leader of the progressive Green Alliance party, which is approaching other forces from the center of the political spectrum in the Coalition of Hope by 2022, instead of joining the so-called Historical Pact,

more heeled to the left

,

headed by Petro, also a former mayor of Bogotá.

More information

• Claudia López opposes her leadership to that of Iván Duque in crisis management

• Duque tries to change the narrative and blames Petro for the protests in Colombia

The mayor has taken up her more combative version, which so irritates her critics on the right and the left, to accuse Petro of radicalizing the protesters for electoral purposes.

"Neither Bogotá nor Colombia deserve this destructive way of campaigning to win the Presidency," he said in a series of harsh messages and counterpoints with the leader of the polls.

“Rethink Gustavo.

His commitment to radicalization, confrontation and chaos may assure him

likes

, I doubt the Presidency will guarantee him ”, he snapped.

"Your chaos can be your boomerang."

The union and student organizations calling for the mobilization have fallen back, and the government has succeeded in lifting the vast majority of roadblocks. However, daily skirmishes continue in Bogotá, with outbreaks of protests and riots that the authorities do not stop quelling. Over the weekend, a motorcyclist was cut down by a cable apparently laid by protesters. And on Monday, two months into the national strike that began on April 28, chaos seized a sector of the capital where members of the so-called First Line, mostly young protesters who face the public force, seized of six public transport buses. The mayor's office opened an uncertain dialogue process with the First Line on Thursday.

The mayor of Bogotá, Claudia López, during an event with the metropolitan police.

"With the endowment that leaders of Colombia Humana give them, they puncture, block and hijack buses," said the mayor, referring to Petro's political movement. He has justified his accusations in several episodes. Senator Gustavo Bolívar, a close associate of Petro, has promoted donations to give helmets, goggles and gloves to the front lines, and another Colombia Humana councilor spread false news about ambulances carrying police weapons, sparking attacks against the medical staff. Petro has responded that his movement has not generated a single act of violence, nor is there any evidence. According to him, everything is part of a stigmatization campaign and he has asked him to rectify it. He has even threatened to criminally denounce her for slander.

The mayor's remarks add to the diplomatic offensive in which Duque, without providing evidence or mentioning him by name, has blamed Petro for the social outbreak, which is located at the ideological antipodes of the Democratic Center, the government party founded by former President Álvaro Uribe, the president's political mentor. During the crisis, Petro, who was part of the M19 guerrilla for more than 30 years, has opted to project a presidential image with "speeches" on his social networks. Although at times he has invited moderation, from the right they brand him as an incendiary. While observers agree that his candidacy can capitalize on discontent, the amalgam of social demands is not due to a single leadership.

Throughout the pandemic, the mayor has opposed her leadership to that of President Duque. Faced with the protests, he has had to balance to claim the political center and at the same time deal with the excesses in the capital, while Petro has attacked it for episodes of police brutality. The disagreements between the two greatest opponents of Uribe deepen. However, the mayor, who was Sergio Fajardo's candidate for vice president in the 2018 elections, then publicly supported Petro in the second round - unlike the former mayor of Medellín, who opted for the blank vote.

Those ties were “purely pragmatic”, because “the distance of ideas, styles and ways of seeing the Government between the sectors that they guide is very great”, values ​​the consultant and political analyst Andrés Mejía Vergnaud.

“The center has a problem, its identity is a bit gaseous, so it has to make a lot of effort to define and defend it.

That was part of what Claudia López did in that counterpoint ”about the protests, he points out.

A new convergence between the forces of the center and the left that Petro represents for the 2022 presidential elections, even if it is circumstantial, appears in these days of turmoil as a more remote possibility.

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