Colombia lives days of enormous political tension. The sinking in the Congress of the Republic of the Popular Consultation Project is a hard blow to the Executive, but it is not the defeat of Petro, the end of the government, nor the early definition of the 2026 elections. Yes it is another demonstration of the decline of the congress, with its underground rites and its elite pacts, a challenge to the workers and social sectors, and, above all, a huge challenge of the first government of the first government in 200 years. that came to power, precisely, to know how to interpret the spirit of the social outbreak that shook the country in the last administration.
The sinking of the aforementioned project is a strong downpour more than a government that has had a few days of sun and many of storm in Congress. A right without political initiative, clings to the legislative blockade, to stop the rise in the surveys of President Petro, which has managed to grow his positive image up to 42%, according to the latest opinion studies, thanks to his success in identifying the defense of the labor rights lost in the governments of César Gaviria and Álvaro Uribe, as an issue that unites millions of Colombians.
President Petro has reacted to the opposition with all the political artillery, using X, formerly Twitter, such as his trench, where trills publishes the line of popular action, trying to demonstrate that the victory of the opposition in Congress is Pyrrhic, because the street will become the theater where the people will define the fate of democracy.
The same night of the sinking of the consultation, the president made one of the shortest alocutions of his government, but more forceful: “The time of the people arrived,” he said, surrounded by the ministers who accompany him in his historic journey through China, which has meant a breakdown of the traditional full adhesion of Colombia to American foreign policy. The president’s strategy is for the people to self -call in open councils and decide which route should start Colombia to guarantee the transformation that blocks the Congress.
“The generalized mobilization of society can even achieve, appealing to the good conscience, which always exists in humans, that the labor reform is approved and the health reform progresses. Hopefully the spirit of the constitution of the 91 alum to the Court and saves millions of old people of their sadness and loneliness, and recovers institutions that have been placed against the Constitution,” wrote the head of state in X. of constituted and act.
“I will be willing to fulfill the will of the people,” he said from China, opening a sea of interpretations to that phrase, precisely after last May first, before the workers, indigenous and peasants gathered in Bogotá, unveiled the sword of Bolívar, raised the flag of “War to death”, and lies the 12 questions of the popular consultation that Congress sank into a vote marked by the fraud.
And a day later to that vote Trinó in X: “How deep that popular mobilization should be, it remains to be seen. The consultation just wanted to approve dignified labor standards. I think what happened leads us to a greater consultation, but not to make a law approve. Now, the people of Colombia must become a primary constituent. Not to re -elect my Laws made by mafia paramilitarism and corruption.
Petro also invited a general strike promoted from the government. An idea that shakes the national political board and puts the president at the head of a citizen mobilization without a history, just one year after the presidential elections of 2026. And, as head of the Military Forces, he has ordered to respect social protest, which must be peaceful. The images of the social outbreak, which shook the country between 2019 and 2021, starring the young people who protested against economic reforms and the health crisis generated by the COVID, in the government of Iván Duque, are still in the retinal of Colombians.
The social outbreak meant a turning point in the governance of Duke, demolishing its low popularity, which reached historical minimums. A new social outbreak, this time against the traditional political class and the Congress of the Republic, only a few months after the elections, it would be an unprecedented situation in the history of Colombia.
The national strike convened by the liberal and conservative parties meant the end of the Dictatorship of Rojas Pinilla, on May 10, 1957. President Petro is calling a national strike to revoke at the polls, in the 2026 elections, to the opposition congressmen who closed the doors to the consultation and, incidentally, choose his successor whose name is still a riddle.
This citizen mobilization organized from the Executive will begin next Monday in Barranquilla, with the first open council, which the president himself will preside. From the land of the powerful Char family, Petro will ratify that he is a political leader who does not fit in any mold and each defeat has transformed it into a political victory. After more than 1,000 days of management, the president has reaffirmed in his ideology, breaking the manuals for the management of relations with the congress, the economic groups and the media. Colombia’s adhesion to the new Silk route and the BRICS, the powerful alliance of countries with emerging economies, which are made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, as well as the entry to the New Development Bank, NBD, which directs the former president of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, is Petro’s response to threats from Washington to national autonomy.
His has not been a transition government, but of confrontation to status quo. Therefore, it has not existed, nor has he sought, a honeymoon with the traditional media, the big capitals, nor the electoral castes. Petro has appealed to a permanent campaign, face to face, in the territories, with the peasants, indigenous and workers. Despite the strenuous fiscal crisis, it has seduced the popular sectors with ambitious social policies, subsidies, agrarian reform, greater budget to the educational sector, trains, infrastructure. He has also expanded his electoral horizons on social networks, where he has millions of followers. Only then has it been able to grow in the surveys and connect again with young people and less favored strata. With his decision, Congress has given him a flag to go out and grow.
While the pertinaz rain falls around the Congress, many presumed, as in the famous story of García Márquez, that something very serious will happen in this town. Macondo Arde and Petro is not speaking Chinese.
For more updates, visit our homepage: NewsTimesWire
