Several thousand people demonstrated Monday, September 26 throughout Colombia to protest against the reform projects of the new left-wing president Gustavo Petro.
In the capital Bogota, demonstrators marched through the streets of the historic center before gathering under whistles in front of the presidential palace to the cry of
“Petro out!”
, noted AFP.
Wrapped in a huge Colombian flag, Marta Segura gives voice.
“Colombia is sinking.
We can't let that happen
,” exclaims the 55-year-old entrepreneur who claims to have had to part with two of her seven employees because of the tax reform currently being debated in parliament, a few meters away.
Gustavo Petro became Colombia's first left-wing president in early August.
He won over a large part of the electorate, in particular the underprivileged classes, minorities and the youngest, thanks to the promise of a battery of reforms to increase taxes on the richest, redistribute arable land to peasants, or even achieve
"total peace"
with the armed groups operating in the country.
“They are deceiving us”
"He promised radical policy change
(but)
he surrounded himself with corrupt politicians," said Orlando Novoa, a 60-year-old building contractor who wears a
"They're tricking us"
sticker on his shirt
.
These are the first manifestations to be faced by the new president.
More or less provided, the processions also paraded in the streets of Medellin (north-west) or Bucaramanga (north-east).
In Cali (southwest), the capital of the Cauca Valley, a region where land occupations by indigenous people and other peasants have heightened tensions, hundreds of demonstrators dressed in white held up posters with the words
" Respect for private property”
or
"Petro incites delinquency rather than production"
.
Petro's predecessor, the conservative Iván Duque, had to face massive demonstrations, especially in 2021. They lasted two months and were severely repressed by the police, the UN having recorded 46 deaths.
“We are clear
,” Interior Minister Alfonso Prada commented on Twitter on Monday,
“social protest is a constitutional right that we must guarantee and that we must protect, and we must listen to the citizens who are marching”
.
