The street is the main setting for Gustavo Petro. There, where others feel intimidated, unprotected or threatened, he shines like Sirius in the firmament. Nobody like him knows the powers of the street and manages in a better way the fibers of those who are going to express their feelings to her. Or Petro’s.
When the persecution of the attorney Alejandro Ordóñez was coming, a matter of garbage in Bogotá, a character very close to Petro held a meeting where he was given clues about what was coming, perhaps with the idea that he would transmit to Petro the message and made him bend his knees.
The anecdote was told to me by this character to explain to me how Petro is not a conventional politician, one of those who would have reacted by offering positions or perks to lower the intensity of the flame. On the contrary, he was barely aware of what was said in the meeting, his eyes lit up and he said to his envoy: “Let’s go to the streets!”
And they were, in a mayor’s office that had more of a caudillista deed than of judicious administration. So much so that many, not without reason, continue to think that the great architect of Petro’s arrival at the presidency was the passionate persecution of Ordóñez.
In the balance published by The Economist about the first months of the Government of change, total peace and life as a power, there are good clues to understand Petro’s fascination with the street: dividing opinion, generating abrupt changes, reforming with radicalism, leaning on activists (even appointing them ministers ), despise the private, be erratic in behavior and, most important of all, attack institutional restrictions.
The reformist Petro, the one who wants to generate almost immediate changes, is hindered by laws and courts like a straitjacket. That is why his indifference with the high magistracies, whom he sees as uncomfortable obstacles in his desire to impose transformations. Prosecutor’s Office, Attorney General’s Office, comptrollers and almost everything that represents the architecture of the State, with limitations and formalisms, enervates it.
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In such a way that, even having thrown Congress into his pocket, he fears that some of his reforms will suffer the customary haircuts that are practiced there. That is why he demands submission: that his congressmen approve everything by “pupitrazo”.
Without arguing, without thinking, without reasoning, without debating. The more than thirty projects that will go through the cameras in the coming months must be understood as products that go in a band of assembly free of quality control. It is expected in the palace that, just as they arrive at the legislative factory, they will be packed and distributed almost automatically.
Hence the street. To apply one of Petro’s most effective strategies: the people, convinced that he embodies the revolution of an outdated state, take to the streets to support him, without further consideration for the legal framework of the republic. No more legal obstacles, no more legality, no more checks and balances, no more constitutional checks. First the people (represented by Petro) and then the laws and regulations. If order is in the way, let’s just be left with the freedom of the shield.
The street speaks and the country must listen to it, under penalty of lighting a fuse that will go directly to the powder keg. And, all, in flying atoms. The president is not going to light it, but he asks people to bring matches to the demonstrations. Be careful: the street is full of holes and through one of them democracy can vanish.
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