21A: Mass protests against Petro
21A: Mass protests against Petro
On April 21, hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated against Petro. This mass protest attracted a broad and politically diverse crowd, with different grievances.
On April 21 (21A), over 250,000 people across Colombia demonstrated against President Gustavo Petro and his administration. This mass mobilization is the biggest anti-Petro demonstration since he took office in 2022, and the first such protest to attract a broader, more politically diverse, crowd. The protests showed the widespread discontent with Petro and the government.
A familiar part of the political landscape…
Anti-Petro demonstrations, organized by right-wing influencers and political figures, and the government’s own marches as counterpoints, have become part of the political landscape since 2022. There have been several major anti-Petro protests since the fall of 2022, most recently just over a month ago in early March.
The political climate over the past few months in Colombia has been highly charged, from the controversies surrounding the election of the attorney general amidst investigations against Petro’s campaign finances, Petro’s idea of a ‘constituent assembly’ and the government intervention of the two biggest EPS (health insurance providers) following the defeat of Petro’s healthcare reform in the Senate. The opposition and the government (and its supporters) have been in quasi-constant confrontation, and Petro is in no mood to be conciliatory. He’s doubled-down on a populist, Manichean rhetoric pitting him and the ‘popular forces’ of ‘change’ against a violent, exclusionary, egoistic and crypto-fascist ‘establishment’ that is hell-bent on removing him from office by force (à la Allende in 1973). His increasingly radical and populist rhetoric, mixed in with his idea of a ‘constituent assembly’ and ambiguous response to a question about convening one by decree (“look less at the form than at the content”), have reinforced his opponents and critics’ fears that he is danger to democracy and institutional stability. The right is convinced that their castrochavista nightmares about him are correct.
The mobilization of the right-wing core
Up until now, these protests had largely mobilized ‘hardcore’ right-wing anti-petristas that never voted for him and never liked him. They had been organized by right-wing influencers, commentators and political figures and the main stars of these protests were right-wing opposition politicians, primarily uribistas. 21A started out no differently, being organized by right-wing influencers and commentators on social media, like Jaime Arizabaleta, Ana María Abello and Pierre Onzaga among others.
The most prominent uribista politicians—senators María Fernanda Cabal, Miguel Uribe and Paloma Valencia, Bogotá councillor (and right-wing influencer) Daniel Briceño and representatives like José Jaime Uscátegui and Hernán Cadavid—joined them in mobilizing and firing up their base. Former vice president Francisco ‘Pacho’ Santos has fired up right-wingers by (falsely) accusing senators who recently voted in favour of articles of Petro’s pension reform of “stealing your pension.”
Other right-wing grassroots movements and local groups have become important local organizers for these protests and now have experience with the logistics. These groups have also become an important part of the uribista base locally: Andrés ‘Gury’ Rodríguez, a right-wing activist who has helped organized several right-wing protests in Medellín, was elected to Medellín’s city council last fall with 6,000 votes.
Military veterans and the active reserves (retired sub-officers and officers) have also been a prominent presence in protests. Petro was elected with a discourse critical of the military and police, and ‘purged’ a large number of officers from the ranks, helping to mobilize and radicalize retired officers—already a rather right-wing group—against him. The opposition and these retired officers’ groups have criticized Petro’s (mis)management of the security situation and his handling of the peace process, accusing him of demoralizing the military and letting guerrilla and ‘narco-terrorist’ grow in strength. Some members of these ex-military groups have flirted with golpista ideas (in 2023, a retired colonel and former president of Acore, the largest association of retired offices, said that Petro should be ‘defenestrated’).
The demonstrations were also joined by centre-right and right-wing politicians outside of uribismo. Cambio Radical (CR) senator David Luna, CR’s most visible congressman and anti-Petro figure, joined the protest, and CR’s natural leader, former vice president Germán Vargas Lleras, called on people to take to the streets. Other right-wing politicians like former 2022 presidential candidates Enrique Gómez Hurtado (Movimiento Salvación Nacional), evangelical pastor John Milton Rodríguez (Colombia Justa Libres) and Ingrid Betancourt also participated.
Assorted grievances
The 21A protests also attracted professional groups with grievances against the government. Healthcare professionals, represented by the Colombian Association of Surgeons and the Colombian Association of Scientific Societies (a grouping of 69 organization of medical specialists), joined what they called the marcha de las batas blancas (march of the white coats) to protest Petro’s healthcare reform and intervention of the EPS. Pacientes Colombia, a patients’ organization, also declared its support.
Fedetranscarga, the federation of freight transportation businessmen, joined to protest against the government’s intentions to raise the price of diesel fuel, removing subsidies to reduce the deficit of the FEPC (a fund that has subsidized gasoline and diesel prices for consumers since 2007). The government has raised gasoline prices since 2022 (from $0.56/litre to $1.05/litre), significantly reducing the FEPC’s deficit from 36.7 trillion pesos to 20.5 trillion pesos, but it has delayed raising diesel prices in the face of opposition from the freight transport industry and long-haul truckers. Diesel accounts for 15.2 trillion pesos of the FEPC’s remaining deficit. The government and the freight transportation sector met in February but didn’t reach an agreement. Fedetranscarga refuses any increase in diesel prices until there is “hope and re-investment for economic actors.”
Some oil industry workers, from the UTIPEC (a smaller union of oil and energy workers), opposed to Petro’s energy transition and anti-extractivist policies also participated.
The centre and arrepentidos
21A, for the first time, drew a broader and more politically diverse crowd. Some centrists, including a fair amount who had voted for Petro in the runoff in 2022 and now regret their vote, for the first time took to the streets, somewhat timidly and perhaps a bit uncomfortable about it all. Colombian centrists have been branded by their critics, not without reason, as tibios (lukewarm or tepid), for their tendency towards fence-sitting.
Some centrist (and centre-right) political leaders joined the protests. Juan Manuel Galán, the leader of Nuevo Liberalismo and brother of Bogotá mayor Carlos Fernando Galán (Galán voted for Rodolfo, not Petro, in the runoff), said he would march in defence of the 1991 Constitution, democratic institutions and the healthcare system. Bogotá councillor Juan Daniel Oviedo, the surprise runner-up in last year’s mayoral election in the capital (ahead of the Pacto’s Gustavo Bolívar) with 20.2%, who has sought to be a ‘constructive opposition’ to Petro, participated in what he saw as a “legitimate expression of dissatisfaction” and to demand that the government “speaks the truth, listens to the country and takes evidence-based decisions.”
The biggest name to join was, however, Petro’s former education minister Alejandro Gaviria, who has become a vocal critic of the government and particularly the healthcare reform since he was fired from cabinet in February 2022. Gaviria, a liberal academic and former health minister who ran in the centrist presidential primaries in 2022, famously endorsed Petro in 2022 because, he opined, “it is better to have a controlled explosion with Petro than to the bottle up the volcano” and became one of the symbols of Petro’s early ‘opening’ to the liberal centre (and technocrats) upon taking office. After Petro dismissed him, Gaviria wrote a political memoir about his brief time in government and has strongly criticized the government. Gaviria took to the streets on April 21 with “doctors and patients” in “defence of Colombia’s health.”
Green representative Catherine Juvinao, who had supported Petro from the first round in 2022 but has since become one of the most prominent critics in the House (particularly the healthcare reform), protested alongside Alejandro Gaviria saying that she defends the 1991 Constitution and rejects the destruction of the healthcare system.
Another prominent arrepentido was former finance minister (1990-1994) Rudolf Hommes. The man who was the face of the neoliberal apertura económica in the early 1990s endorsed Petro in the runoff in 2022, seeing him as a unique opportunity to change the country. He has since regretted that vote and, as an active political commentator, has criticized Petro’s ‘arbitrary’ governance and his economic policies.
2022 centrist presidential candidate Sergio Fajardo, after a cryptic tweet two days before, finally showed up in Bogotá on April 21 as an “ordinary citizen” to “listen to the diversity of reasons why people protested” and in the hopes of building a different country, outside of the extremes. Fajardo got a lot of criticism, some of it well deserved, from the left for finally breaking from his characteristic indecision and tibio attitude to participate in a predominantly right-wing demonstration against Petro after having been largely absent from the 2021 protests and tone-deaf response to the explosive social context at the time.
In Medellín, centrist representative Daniel Carvalho (an ally of senator Humberto de la Calle) marched to express his concern with the bad state of the country and in the hopes that the government would understand that change “must be concerted and that institutions must be respected.” Former Medellín Green councillor Daniel Duque held a placard saying that he was protesting against Petro for the same reasons he had protested against Iván Duque in 2021—“massacres, assassination of social leaders, corruption and his bad leadership.”
Others in the centre or centre-left who have been critical of Petro didn’t join, unwilling and uncomfortable to join a predominantly right-wing protest movement and to share the streets with the most extremist fringes of the anti-Petro opposition. For example, representative Jennifer Pedraza (one of the most prominent centre-left/left-wing critics of Petro) said that she wouldn’t participate even though she is greatly disappointed with the government because the CD and CR are also responsible for the country’s socioeconomic crisis.
Meanwhile at the Palace
In the days before, Petro had sent implicit signs that he was worried about the potential size of the 21A movement (not that he’d ever admit it). With the excuse of the water crisis in Bogotá that has forced the city to ration water, on April 18 Petro asked Bogotá residents to leave the city over the weekend to “reduce pressure of water consumption.”
On the afternoon of April 18, the government also haphazardly decreed that the next day, April 19, would be a “civic day of peace with nature” (and, in future years, the third Friday in April every year), ostensibly to conserve water during the crisis. It just so happens that April 19 is also Petro’s birthday and the mythical foundational day for the M-19 guerrilla (the date of the ‘stolen’ 1970 election). While interior minister Luis Fernando Velasco denied that the intention was to sabotage the 21A protests, that same evening Petro tweeted “tomorrow is a day of national rebellion, tomorrow we combine the forces of life, we drive away the summons of death, tomorrow is the day of life on earth, my day and your day.” In an attempt to quell the right’s criticisms, Petro tweeted the next morning that the demonstrations would be welcomed and that authorities would provide all the guarantees to allow people to protest and express themselves freely.
Petro’s civic day was not a public holiday and only applied to the national government, with territorial governments and the private sector free to make their own decisions. Few territorial governments or companies followed suit—Bogotá, Medellín, Cali and Barranquilla did not follow the ‘civic day’ (Cartagena and departments like Atlántico, Bolívar and Boyacá did).
Mass protests
According to Petro, 250,000 people demonstrated in major cities across Colombia. The numbers may be even higher (as high as 500,000) given conflicting local and national numbers. In Bogotá, according to official numbers, about 70,000-90,000 people took to the streets despite the rain. In Medellín, an opposition bulwark, the number may have been as high as 350,000. In other cities, there were about 35,000 people in Cali, 4,000 in Barranquilla, 6,000-8,000 in Bucaramanga, 10,000 in Ibagué and 1,500 in Cartagena. Some right-wing influencers said that these were the biggest protests against any government, or the biggest since the massive anti-FARC protests in 2008.
Regardless of how many people showed up, they filled the streets and main squares in major cities. In Bogotá, they easily filled up the Plaza de Bolívar in the historic central core (and flooded over on other main roads like the Séptima). To give the protests a less party-political stamp, organizers didn’t set up a stage in the Plaza de Bolívar so politicians weren’t able to give speeches.
As with all protest movements, people marched with different grievances and for different reasons. Some of the main ones, of course, included general dissatisfaction with the government and opposition to its reforms or Petro’s constituent assembly idea, concerns about the healthcare system, defending the institutions as well as general hatred of Petro (the usual references to Petro guerrillero common on the right/far-right). Some demanded Petro be removed from office, either through legal, constitutional means (through a juicio político or impeachment trial) or extralegal means (a coup). Others said they don’t want to oust him from office but want him to calm down and govern for everyone.
Reflection and self-criticism?
There’s no way to deny that this was a massive popular mobilization in opposition to the government, from a broad array of society and political opinion, without being intellectually dishonest. Even those who didn’t march on April 21 have said that the government must listen to the streets and that Petro must hear the message sent by protesters.
Some in the government have understood that. Laura Sarabia, Petro’s right-hand woman and one of the few persons he listens to, tweeted that “we must recognize that many people mobilized” and that the government “must face it in reflection and self-criticism.” Interior minister Velasco agreed with her, saying that there was a political message that the government will receive. Environment minister Susana Muhamad said that the government was willing to listen the protests and that dialogue is essential. Pacto senator Iván Cepeda said that the government’s duty is to listen to discontent and criticism, correct what has been done wrong, explain what is misunderstood or unfairly misinterpreted and dialogue to reach a national agreement.
See you on May 1, rinse and repeat
There has been no reflection or self-criticism from the man at the top, Petro. His first reaction, via tweet (of course), was a long-winded rant seeking to minimize the protests and complain that the protesters want to overthrow him and/or that they hate him because he’s left-wing or of humble background. During the day, Petro had tweeted an old video from the late comedian Jaime Garzón with the comment ‘the dominant class’, revealing his view that the protests are commanded by the upper class elites.
In response, Petro called on the ‘popular forces’ to mobilize on May 1. In other words, continuing the now familiar cycle of pro-government demonstrations and opposition protests, rinse and repeat. Pro-Petro rallies on May 1, in which the president intends to participate personally, are unlikely to get the sort of turnout that 21A got. But Petro firmly believes that the people is behind him. He says that it’s not about dividing the country because it’s already divided (what about reuniting it?).
Since April 21, Petro has repeatedly tweeted about the protests, trying to highlight the actions and behaviours of the most extremist fringe of the opposition or depict the protesters as misguided or manipulated by lies. Among other tweets, he’s said that uribismo wants to imitate the 1973 Chilean coup, some protesters are moved by hatred and dreams of coups, that some people want him to die or whatever this very long tweet says. This has been Petro’s usual response to opposition protests: discrediting them as voices from the dark past of paramilitarism, and shining the spotlight selectively on the most radical and extremist elements (with their golpista delusions) so as to paint the opposition with a broad brush as fascists.
Those outside of the petrista galaxy have criticized Petro’s reaction as arrogant and tone-deaf, not unlike Iván Duque’s inability to hear the cries of the protests in 2019-2021. Claudia López, on the starting blocks for 2026, called Petro’s reaction arrogant and disrespectful.
León Valencia, a left-leaning political analyst, said that Petro must take note of the situation, a ‘pause for reflection’ to change strategies, refine implementation and execution and attend to security problems.
While in the short term Petro’s reaction indicates a further radicalization of the president and continued polarization, with tit for tat opposing marches, parts of the administration are aware that they need to listen to the social reality and seek some sort of dialogue. Petro is stubborn and self-confident (some might say narcissistic) and doesn’t listen to many people, but he’s not stupid and he does realize that not everything is going perfectly.
In parallel to the protests, the Senate debated the government’s pension reform and on April 23 it finally was approved by the Senate in its second of four debates in Congress (more on that in a later post). The government, through the interior and labour ministers, made concessions to secure its approval. To the right’s great chagrin, the independent parties in Congress (Liberals and La U) didn’t take 21A as a sign to break with the government and reject the reform.
The 21A protests may not have moved Petro to change course for now, but they were further evidence of the tense and polarized political climate in Colombia right now. A political climate which is only going to get hotter and tenser as 2026 draws closer.
Thanks for reading.