As I have said in other columns, the national ‘government’ weekly generates events that capture the attention of public opinion. This week we must talk about the popular demonstrations, but you pay with resources from the national treasury to pressure the Congress of the Republic in its legislative work (This, as if not to comment on the possible breach of the collaboration agreement of Nicolás Petro with the Attorney General’s Office of the Nation regarding the financing of the presidential campaign of his father, Gustavo Petro, in 2022).
The fact that the national ‘government’ finances demonstrations with public resources in an almost desperate attempt to show some popular support after a year of misgovernment, improvisation, demagogy and technical poverty, is not a crime. However, it is an ethical failure for those of us who believe that public resources should be allocated, as constitutionally provided, to the fulfillment of the essential purposes of the State. Which, it must be clarified, is not equivalent to the fulfillment of the government’s purposes.
Financing demonstrations with public resources to show some popular support is an action that should lead, on the one hand, to the opening of an investigation by control entities, and on the other, social sanctions. The latter, by virtue of the ethical dimension that I mentioned in the previous paragraph.
In that same sense, the media, although they are branded as “means of misinformation” and “instruments of hegemonic power” by the most faithful and obedient Petrists, have the obligation to inform the country of any anomalous event that occurs in the country. framework of these prepaid demonstrations.
I say “prepaid” because there have already been several contractual revelations in which the opposition has managed to show, via the Electronic System for Public Procurement – SECOP, that the indigenous and peasant associations that support the “March for life” (as stated has called from Casa Nariño) have received two contracts, whose objects are as broad as the convenience of the executive requires to use them in the media (Of course, the photos cannot be missing! Obviously, from the most favorable angles).
I hope that the banners that will be waved at the march indicate, even in small print, “paid political advertising.” Well, you cannot try to deceive the country in such a crude way as the illegitimate Gustavo Petro tries every time he can, who, presumably, not only was it not enough for him to walk the ethical lines with his campaign team to manipulate the opinion of the electorate. (as Guanumen confessed in a Petrovídeo) nor make agreements with those extraditable with relevant impact in the territories for electoral purposes (as Juan Fernando Petro confessed in Los Informantes) nor exceed the campaign financing limits (as Nicolás Petro confessed before the Prosecutor’s Office), but has also resorted to altering the video of his speech before the UN, imposing on it the applause that Biden’s intervention received. All this to show support for his government, it is a pity that in this march the great sacrifices are the peasant and indigenous dignities who seem to have found a buyer.
