Petro makes his riskiest bet and causes a shock in Colombia

Gustavo Petro has the feeling that he wasted time in his first year in the Government.

He formed a concentration cabinet that included the Colombian liberal center, which calmed the right and the most conservative sectors that saw in Petro the advent of the radical left to the country.

The ministers of that political sensitivity balanced the most ideologized positions of Petrism, which, and this must be said, attended the president's first decisions with a certain disenchantment.

Thus, majority alliances were established in Congress and a tax reform was carried out, the issue that had sunk his predecessor, Iván Duque.

However, over time tension grew between Petro and these politicians.

The president advocated total transformations;

them for doing acupuncture and not dismantling what has been built by Colombian institutions in recent decades, which is no small thing if it is compared to other countries in the region.

That clashed with the president's vision of change and it was clear that sooner or later it was going to end in a collision.

He kicked them out and from then on he thought that he should not go back on the word that he had given during the campaign to his electorate.

That disruptive Petro emerged with all his energy on Friday, when in a speech in the city of Cali he opened the door to a Constituent Assembly that would remove his reforms from stagnation, which are paralyzed in Congress due to lack of quorum.

He is especially hurt by the health sector, which on Wednesday received a blow from some senators who signed, by majority, a report to sink it.

That night, the president assured, in a severe tone, that he was not going to give up and that the transformation of the Colombian public health service was urgent.

He accused his opponents of refusing to implement the changes his electorate demands of him.

In addition, he is told that he has difficulties giving rise to other reforms, such as agrarian reforms, pensions and even an education proposal.

Petro feels chained.

It is not known if the president had planned to make this announcement or if he communicated it to those around him.

Sometimes those close to him find out through his public statements.

Certainly, Petro was ecstatic on Friday.

He appeared before thousands of supporters in Puerto Resistencia, a Cali neighborhood that became insubordinate during the 2021 protests and prevented access by the authorities and the Police.

A kind of independent republic was created for months.

Black boys, victims of systemic racism, without access to a university education and with precarious jobs, armed themselves with sticks and took cover behind barricades.

Many paid with their lives for these confrontations that Iván Duque defended without mentioning the victims even once.

Petro's arrival to power is understood, in large part, by the channeling that he made of that satiety.

So on Friday, there, before indigenous people and popular sectors, he said: “We come from the front line and we are proud.

I am from the front line.

“I am the first line of change.”

He added: “We come from the people and they have chosen us to change Colombia.

“We are not here to clean the boots of the rich in the country.”

His enemies, who on many occasions are too literal, began to propagate that he had recognized that he had organized the protests, that he had been a kind of shadow agitator who, with coldness and premeditation, counted on obtaining political gain from this.

The Duke himself spread this falsehood in an interview that he conducted himself in English to deny the coverage of international newspapers, which documented the murders of young people during the protests, sometimes in cold blood and without any confrontation involved. .

The fact is that on Friday the president was there, in the heart of the protests, taking a mass bath.

It was the perfect setting to unleash his epic.

Shy at close range, he transforms himself on stage and can speak for hours with flowery verbs without needing to read a piece of paper, in the way that old politicians who inspired him did, such as the late Jorge Eliécer Gaitán. .

That is the context in which he announced a possibility that has shocked Colombia: “If this possibility of a popularly elected Government in the middle of this State and under the Constitution of Colombia cannot apply the Constitution because they surround it not to apply it and "They prevent it, then Colombia has to go to a National Constituent Assembly."

Then he added: “The National Constituent Assembly must transform the institutions so that they obey the people with their mandate of peace and justice, which is easy to achieve in Colombia.”

The networks were filled with messages of rejection and self-fulfilling prophecies: many of those who oppose his Government had predicted that he would seek a reform of the Constitution that would allow him, among other things, to eliminate the prohibition on re-election and stay another four years. in power, although for that he would need higher levels of popularity than he has now, which is around 30%.

Even one of his most faithful political operators, Senator Iván Cepeda, invited Petro, indirectly and always with his elegant way of approaching things, to reconsider his positions and open himself to seeking greater consensus: “I continue to believe in the possibility of a national agreement that allows for a concerted solution to the country's fundamental problems.

I understand and share President @petrogustavo's rejection of attempts to frustrate social reforms that seek the well-being of the Colombian people.

However, I do not lose hope that through dialogue we will build that historic pact and I invite the President to persevere in that effort."

Looking back, we now understand Petro's defense of Pedro Castillo's self-coup, whom he always considered a victim of the obstruction of the Peruvian Congress.

It is not that he is going to commit political suicide of this magnitude, but he shows how fed up he is with the lower house.

Starting the adventure of a National Constituent Assembly involves many risks.

It would need the support of the same Congress that it frontally opposes and the election of members would be done by popular vote.

His mandate right now is not popular enough to ensure a majority there and he could end up like Gabriel Boric, whose new Constitution was not approved and strengthened the extreme right.

That fateful day for Boric, Petro said that “Pinochet revived,” and hours later the president of Chile was more diplomatic, acknowledging defeat.

Petro could enter that labyrinth.

The Venezuelan opposition has come out against him: he reminds them of the first Hugo Chávez who laid the foundations for an authoritarian government.

That is not his purpose - he has advocated for a democratic transition in Venezuela that ends the political and institutional crisis - nor does he have the power or support to do something like that.

However, with this he has drawn a line.

From now on, the Constituent Assembly will dominate the public debate, with consequences still unknown.

Petro enters swampy waters.

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