hundreds of thousands of people demonstrate against the government

This is the first mass protest that the Colombian president has to face, thousands of people demonstrated on Sunday in the country’s main cities. Gustavo Petro finds himself trapped between disappointed supporters and opportunistic political adversaries.

Pensions, new Constitution, purchasing power, health reform… Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of Bogota, Cali, Medellin, Cartagena, Sunday April 21, 2024. The slogans were numerous, but they had only one target: the Colombian government. In response, Gustavo Petro, the first left-wing president from Colombiaelected for less than two years, describes this wave of discontent as “soft coup”. These are peaceful demonstrations, but orchestrated by the Colombian liberal right with the sole aim of bringing down the government, according to President Gustavo Petro. He also minimized the scale of the protest: 250,000 people, according to Gustavo Petro, double according to the organizers.

Originally, this weekend’s mobilization was called “March of the White Coats” and therefore health workers, a sector which is on the verge of collapse in Colombia. A unique model in Latin America, financed largely by the State, but managed by private companies, Health Promotion Entities (EPS). They are intermediaries between affiliated patients (i.e. 98% of the Colombian population) and an entire network of providers and hospitals, whether public or private.

A health reform project rejected by the center and the liberal right

These EPS are absolutely no longer satisfactory. The organizations are over-indebted, do not pay their clients and impose delays of several months on patients. Public money managed by private companies is the reason for the discord and the heart of the crisis, for Johnattan Garcia Ruiz, health policy expert at Harvard University. “In recent months, the EPS have asked the government for an increase in contributions. The government saw things differently and opened an investigation to find out what had become of the public funds spent by the EPS, but which were not used for patient care. This is one of the reasons why the government wanted to reform the health system.he explains.

The government of Gustavo Petro therefore made a reform project to nationalize Colombian health and guarantee access to the most isolated citizens. But this project was widely rejected in early April by the center and liberal right parties. An opposition which was on the front line this weekend, both to stir up protests and to block the solutions brought by Gustavo Petro. “Conservative elites”, in the Colombian president’s own words, who want to continue to capture public money to benefit the private sector. An opposition mobilized to defend the status quo, when the other part of the procession denounces the government’s inability to change the system.