This is how the inauguration of Gustavo Petro as the new President of Colombia is experienced in Bogotá – Up Jobs News

It would be easy to say that it was another August 7 more, but the truth is that 2022 will probably be remembered as one of the days with the greatest expectation and emotion generated in Colombians in a long time.

Getting up early with such fervor to see a president take office is something that has not happened for a long time. The most recent precedent corresponds to the outgoing president, Iván Duque Márquez; In that 2018 very few people were present in squares and streets. In fact, there was hardly anyone who gathered to celebrate his arrival in power, and the weather did not help. In the end, even the Colombian flag that was waving in the Plaza de Bolívar flew out of there, as if it didn’t want to be there.

Now, when a left-wing president comes to power for the first time, it is inevitable not to feel that hope for change in the air, that feeling that things may be different now. And things are not necessarily good because they are different. That must be clear. However, what is felt in the environment today will be very difficult for the presidents who come after this one to match, whether he does things well or not. What president has done everything right? There is not just one.

Petro, whoever likes it, no one can take this away from him. He assumes command of Colombia at a historic moment for all, and that seems to be supported by all those people who get up early to fill squares and streets, to stay close to the screens that will show his face, and to the loudspeakers that will echo his words.

Rows and rows of more than three blocks, people awake before five in the morning, entire families taking over Bogotá on their birthday. Wasn’t Sunday a day to rest? Nobody seems to care. It seems as if, instead, people want to wake up from some lethargy and find a single slogan in what is coming: change.

What Edgar Pinzon, who got up early to hold a banner all day. “Today is a very happy day, because many years of corrupt governments end. In the 76 years that I have been living I have seen nothing but corruption. And of course, it will not end, but at least it will decrease a little. It is a happy day for me and the old people.”

And that happiness of which he speaks, in addition to seeing himself in the comparsas, in the dances and in the sun that rises over the Colombian capital, is supported by thousands and thousands. Pinzón is one of many, he is added Blanca Nubia Diaza woman from the Wayú community, in La Guajira, who traveled to Bogotá, together with the National Movement of State Crimes (Movice), for the simple fact that she feels happy.

“I feel happy, and not only me, many people from La Guajira, which was where Petro was voted the most. We want this country to have a change. Hopefully we make it a reality, that we can have better things, that there are not as many murders as there have been. May this change remain for the young, for the children, for the elderly, for the peasants, for the Afro, for the indigenous. Hopefully Petro gets it.”

But happiness is not the only thing that inhabits these people, also the illusion, the faith that things will be done well, and of that he is sure Javier Forero, a man who marched towards the Plaza de Bolívar with the M-19 flag. For him, the arrival of Petro to power confirms the first ideals of the April 19 Student Movement. Forero says that he was in the cell next to Petro in La Picota prison, in that year 86.

“I was fifteen years old when I joined the M-19. I was with Petro in that cell. Today I celebrate your presidency, I celebrate the victory of democracy, of a strengthened democracy (…) To make the revolution is to make social transformation, it is to put an end to injustices, so far we are just beginning. The most difficult moment begins today.

Ordas of people came to celebrate that promise of change to Plaza de Bolívar, to Rosario, to Las Nieves, to Parque de los Periodistas, to Parque Santander, to Parque de la Independencia, to every possible space, every street, every corner, all with that common desire. All with faith in the new president, in Gustavo Petro, and in his cabinet, in his vice president, the first Afro woman to reach that position.

This is stated by Yenecith Torres, from the Organization of Ethnic Peoples: “Her arrival means equality, change, participation. When he became vice-president we cried with joy. We knew we were going to get there, but all this is still surprising. It is something historical. It’s the first time we all want to be here.”

And when he says everyone, he means everyone. Afros, indigenous people, peasants, members of the LGBTQ+ community, feminists, men, women, children… At the end of the day, with Petro and Francia Márquez located at the top of the Plaza de Bolívar, facing the Casa de Nariño, Colombia will have taken another step towards that change that people are clamoring for, and only time will tell us if this August 7, 2022 was actually our day of, or just an illusion bathed in hope.

As the time approached for Gustavo Petro to officially take charge of the country, being the first left-wing president in all of history, the personalities of the national show business gradually arrived at the Plaza de Bolívar, as in the case of the singer vallenato Poncho Zuleta, who had to wait a few minutes for his admission to the possession ceremony to be validated.

Finally, the interpreter of ” Nunca de Olvidaré ” was able to enter and be present at the inauguration of Gustavo Petro as the new president of Colombia for the next four years.

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