Courting Chaos

COLOMBIA - In Brief 10 May 2023 by Juan Carlos Echeverry

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It is difficult to follow the dynamics of the Petro administration to try to find a common thread between the utterances and actions of its ministers. One day the president asks for COP 150 trillion from primary monetary issuance for victims of internal conflict; shortly after, from the balcony of the presidential palace he threatens Colombians, saying that were Congress not to approve his reforms as they appear in the draft bills, a popular revolt would ensue, and a revolution could sweep the country with years of violence. A week after that, he says falsely that the Attorney General is his subaltern and ignites a revolt of the judiciary system in defense of its independence, prompting a harsh reply by the president of the Supreme Court and the Attorney General himself. In one month the president has sought to undermine the economy, the legislative and the judiciary. With evident lack of coordination, one of his ministers proposes creating differential prices for gasoline and diesel in order to avoid subsidizing the wrong people (mining and energy), to be countered immediately by her colleague, the finance minister who says, fortunately, that nothing of the sort would be attempted. Meanwhile the Total Peace process is sinking in the quicksand of disorganization, violence and crime, yet we witness Petro lecturing the academic community at Stanford University on platitudes of global warming, followed by a visit to Biden at the White House, stopping in Bogota to change clothes and suitcases, and off to Madrid to be decorated for who knows what. While the president is traveling around the globe, key coalition parties, liberals and conservatives, are defecting, favorabilit...