Gustavo Petro: “The end of model n … is approaching.

The former mayor of Bogotá, Gustavo Petro, analyzed the political and social crisis that his country is going through and ensured that “the end of the neoliberal model in Colombia is coming” while indicating that “(Iván) Duque’s public policies have filled the patience of Colombian society.”

Colombia’s presidential candidate reflected on the reasons that led to the country’s social outbreak, which resulted in scenes of repression, deaths and missing persons, and explained that “the public policies of Iván Duque end up filling the patience of Colombian society in almost all its strata “, for which “A deep neoliberal model that lives only on oil and coal extraction is coming to an end.”

“This leads them to underfund the state and go into debt to save the benefits of the financial system, then people go into extreme poverty, especially in big cities like Bogotá, which has a million poor. When tax reform is accompanied by taxes on foodstuffs and taxes on those who work, the situation explodes “, detailed the leader in dialogue with Radio La Pizarra, which is broadcast on AM750.

In the same vein, he clarified that “there is a first phase of popular mobilization which frustrates the government project” and that “then comes a second phase with barbaric repression and the transformation of young urban demonstrators into “war targets” “.

“It is an electoral strategy that does not take into account the young man they are murdering. The aim is to terrorize the people who had expressed an intention to vote for me, lock her up in her house to survive in the middle of a battlefield, ”he warned.

In this sense, he drew a parallel with the government of the former president Alvaro Uribe, who promoted Duque’s candidacy in the last election. “Uribe’s strategy has always been to use fear of people to get votes, He did it during the FARC era and wants to reproduce it now: Fear leads to vote for the extreme right, ”he stressed.

Election scenario

In another part of the interview, the presidential candidate referred to the 2022 elections: “The last poll gave me 40% of the electorate in the first round and in the second round I beat all the candidates. Today, according to this survey, the President of Colombia would be me. “

“This unleashes great fear within the government because Uribism is in third place, which is why they came to the conclusion that dramatic actions are needed to win back the electorate,” he said.

Given this scenario, Petro discussed the electoral strategies to be deployed by former President Uribe and considered that “a difficult option would be the coup d’etat, to prevent the elections of next year ”, since“ this scenario of anguish would allow them to make the state of internal agitation because the current military and police leadership is deeply Uribe ”.

“The man who has power in Colombia today is called Álvaro Uribe Vélez, Sacrificing Duque is not a problem for them, but the international scene is overwhelming them. Another scenario is that a passive core of the population votes hard right out of fear, ”he said.

Regarding the electoral challenges for next year, he established that “obtaining an electoral majority has two paths: to deepen the popular, where it is in competition with the Uribismo which builds a neoclinical system with ‘public money around the fight against crime’.

“They lost the support of the Popular Communes of Medellín, which have always been Uribistas by terror. There, the mobilizations are immense, it is a fascinating fact for those who know Colombia, a popular society liberating itself from the mafias”, did he declare.

And on the other hand, he stressed that “the other area in dispute is the middle class”, where “the liberals are the strongest, they are the ones who gave the victory to Duque”, which is why “Today, a liberalism-liberalism alliance would be the victory in the first round.”

He also underlined the “good relationship with progressivism within the Democratic Party” which “allows a dialogue with the government”, and distinguished that “there are also the hard cores who want to maintain their business and do not see me. favorably”.

Finally, he referred to the pandemic affecting the world and stressed: “The fact that the US government has taken the vanguard decision not to protect patents opens a step to defend humanity from the virus and I l ‘applaud. “