Above photo: EFE.
Popular Consultation In Colombia.
In the midst of tensions with Congress over the shelving of labor reform, the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, said in Bogotá that a referendum had been launched to decide on the future of the reforms and that the people must remain in permanent and growing mobilization so that the parliamentarians serve them and not the powerful.
In front of tens of thousands of people who filled Plaza Bolívar, in the historic center of the capital, the head of state said that the proposal for a referendum is essential to decide the fate of the social reforms presented by the Government of Change and sunk by opposition parliamentarians who betrayed the people and “have knelt down to the rich,” he said.
During the demonstrations in defense of labor reform, which spread to the main cities throughout the country, a group of legislators from the Seventh Commission of Congress rejected the project and shelved it.
In this regard, Petro declared that “the parliamentarians who have gone against the people, who have betrayed the people and those they represent, who are the ones who should prioritize their time and their beliefs, have betrayed the people of Colombia and they have done so out of greed”.
He asserted that “the Colombian political class has forgotten, sold out to the owners of the money, what the power of the people means”, which he considered “an immense political contradiction”.
He emphasized that “politics is not about serving; politics only serves to be free and the Colombian Congress is turning its back on the people and when entire institutions cannot understand their own people, they cannot understand even their minimal needs”.
He called on the people to rebel with all their might. “We do not accept tyranny, we fight hard, many have died in this country for freedom (…) we have to be aware of the history we are now living through,” said the president, in order to prevent the Constitution from being trampled on.
Petro affirmed that he will give “every last ounce of energy so that the people do not remain silent, so that they shout in every square, because when they are betrayed, it is up to the people to decide and the time has come to decide”.
Following the statements of the Colombian President, the President of Congress, Efraín Cepeda (Conservative Party) defended the actions of the senators who sank the legislative project and rejected the mobilizations called by Petro.
He considered the reform to be harmful and commented that the senators who stabbed the people had held technical meetings and traveled around the country to gather criteria.
He invoked the independence of the public powers and said he did not agree with what he considered threats. He even described Petro’s expressions as a coup d’état.