2023-10-30 02:24:48
“It’s time for change“, said Gustavo Petro upon assuming the Colombian presidency, on August 7, 2022. The country, plagued by violence and poverty that affects 40% of the population, had, with the arrival of the first left-wing government in that country, “a second chance.” Almost 15 months later, those words of redemptive enthusiasm came face to face with the reality of the polls. The regional and municipal elections have put a brake on the transformation drive. The main districts and cities, including Bogotá, Medellín, Cali, Barranquilla, Cartagena, Cúcuta and Bucaramanga, They will be administered by a diverse opposition. “It is a punishment vote for the Historical Pact“, recognized Gustavo Bolívar, the author of the novel Without tits there is no paradiseor, by recognizing his defeat in the capital against the centrist Carlos Fernando Galán.
Petro, whose negative image is 60%, He must have sensed that Sunday would close with bad news. “The opposition, with its influence in the State, wanted to show very high levels of risk for these elections. They wanted to build an environment of fear among citizens to obtain electoral results,” he said early on, while highlighting that the “capacity of the force public and advances in peace guaranteed calm elections in the national territory. Voter turnout was low.
The issue of security was once again in the foreground due to the kidnapping in La Guajira of the father of Luis Díaz, Liverpool star and the national team. But the climate of victory of anti-pretism had been generated from a new rearrangement of the road map of the political elite, displaced from power in 2022. The victory in Medellín of the former right-wing presidential candidate Federico Gutiérrez materializes one of the first attempts to protect weapons in the face of the 2026 general elections. The fall in Bogotá, a territory related to Petrism, takes on the dimension of a bitter omen in this sense.
The Democratic Center, the force built by former President Álvaro Uribe, had good results in Antioquía. Senator María Fernanda Cabalwho expresses the most radical right-wing positions of that party, said that “The implosion of the Pact is the resurrection of our country. Today Colombia is growing, it is the defeat of violence, anarchy and ineptitude.”
A warning sign
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According to the Bogota newspaper The viewer, the elections left three messages. “First, that, except for regrettable but isolated events, the security of the elections was guaranteed; second, that the trend of electing progressive mayors in the country’s large cities four years ago was reversed and, third, that President Gustavo Petro must recalculate his administration if he does not want to continue losing electoral wealth. He recalled that the head of state tried to convert the elections in Bogotá into a plebiscite and the adverse results “are eloquent.” Although it is common for the capital to elect against the current president, “the resounding triumph of the options that moved away from the Casa de Nariño should invite reflections” from the main executive authority. “The open question – concludes the editorial – is how the political forces in Congress will be reconfigured after the local results and how President Petro plans to redesign his project for a national agreement.”
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