President Iván Duque besieged by protests and criticism of his handling of the crisis in Colombia

As the streets burn with anger at his government, Iván Duque looks erratic when not disconnected of Colombia in crisis, according to analysts.

Hundreds of thousands of people have come out to protest his government since April 28. A country impoverished by the pandemic and with the violence back in the fields after the peace pact with the powerful guerrillas of the FARC, He turned his frustration on the 44-year-old president.

In 2019, an unprecedented student movement gave the first notice to the youngest president in recent times. They have since demanded a change of course.

After decades of stigmatization of social protest – then linked to the armed insurgency – young people have lost their fear of mobilization, but also the unions, the transporters, the natives, invaded the streets.

Although mostly peaceful, the protests in recent days have left at least 47 dead and a thousand injured between demonstrators and men in uniform.

The police are in the crosshairs, including the international community, for the repression of demonstrators. As the government shields itself from the rhetoric of vandalism, infiltration of armed groups, coordinated attacks on the police.

“Isolated”

Duque “gives an image of being isolated from reality” and “He’s had the sun on his back since the pandemic hit”Jairo Libreros, political analyst at Externado University, told AFP.

After four days of pressure in the streets, Duque withdrew the tax reform bill which punished the middle class and had led to protests. The next day, the Minister of Finance resigned. And a week after the start of the mobilizations, the president gave in to dialogue, although he first invited those who were not in the street.

For Sandra Borda, analyst at the University of Los Andes, it is “a conversation of them with themselves”.

Given the persistence of the protest, the government deployed 47,500 soldiers across the country, to “provide peace of mind”.

The international community has unitedly denounced the attacks by the security forces during the demonstrations. This decision “is to set the bonfire on fireIt is a little affirmed measure which confirms the disconnection which exists between the (presidential) House of Nariño and certain problems which are imminently social, indicates Libreros.

Since the arrival of the pandemic in March 2020, Duque has appeared daily on television in the program “prevention and action”. Space has made press conferences and interviews less frequent.

It is “an absolutely bubble space, (…) in a closed circle” without room for debate, declares Yann Basset, expert at the Universidad del Rosario. For five nights, he stopped broadcasting.

Amid the chaos of unrest that followed the protests, confusion reigned in the numbers as well.

In Cali, for example, seven people died according to the local mayor’s office and 15 according to the mediator and prosecutor’s office. But for the NGO Temblores, which reviews suspected cases of abuse of power, there are 47 deaths in total, of which 35 are in this city.

“ The entities that should be responsible for ensuring the safety of people (…) are all the security agencies with which the government has cooperated and where it has placed officials. they are close friends of the president“, says Borda.

The data has increased mistrust of institutions. And for analyst Laura Gil “the videos (on police abuse) are so powerful that the numbers don’t matter.” With the militarization of cities and police abuse (…) lost the support of the international community“, Add.

Duque ignored pundits, academics, opponents and even allies when they warned him of the inconvenience a tax hike amid the pandemic.

“Everyone warned him … it was not politically viable,” says Basset. “This shows the government’s inability to read the situation,” he explains.

The initiative aimed to increase the VAT of certain products and to broaden the taxpayer base, in a country in which 42.5% of the population is poor and 16.8% is unemployed.

“We have surely failed in communication,” conceded the president during a meeting with the media. “A tool was needed so that 50% of the poorest households have an income,” he added.

Despite the fact that only 4.6% of the 50 million Colombians are vaccinated against covid-19, the massive protests do not appear to be subsiding. Almost three million have already been infected and at least 76,000 have died from coronavirus.

A year after the elections and with the left rising to the polls, “a presidential campaign that does not seem polarized, but radical” is approaching, said Libreros.

Agencia AFP

PB