Wearing his presidential baseball cap and white shirt above a cheering crowd in Cali’s Plaza de San Francisco, Colombian President Gustavo Petro delivered a speech defending his decision to bypass Congress and call for a national popular consultation on August 7, 2025.
His remarks, part of what the government calls a “Great Mobilization for Peace and Democracy,” came as Petro formalized Decree 0639, calling for a binding referendum on labor rights — a centerpiece of his embattled reform agenda.
During the opening minutes of his address, the leftist president called for a “minute of silence” for his political adversary, Senator and presidential candidate Miguel Uribe Turbay, who was the target of an assassination attempt on Saturday in Bogotá. In what could be interpreted as an act of contrition with the country’s opposition leaders and political parties, Petro forcefully declared to domestic and foreign representatives — including U.S. President Donald Trump and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio — that “the Colombian people have to organize, to move more than ever before.”
Petro then announced that the consulta popular is “the moment of the people, whether they vote Yes or No. The President of the Republic will abide by the will of the people.”
Having visited Cali, the departmental capital of Valle del Cauca, a day after three explosions rocked the city — as well as a 24 armed offensives on Tuesday by FARC dissidents in the neighboring department of Cauca – Petro formalized Decree 0639, reiterating that the referendum is designed to strengthen labor protections and provide dignified conditions for working families.
“Why a popular consultation?” Petro asked rhetorically. “Because it is convenient, it is imperative, it is a categorical necessity of Colombian society today. Contrary to what ex-presidents say, this popular vote is absolutely necessary.”
The president emphasized that the proposed referendum seeks to guarantee rights for Colombian workers: better pay for overtime and holidays, and more time for family life. “I want the worker who gets off at six o’clock to be able to go home, to be paid extra if they stay. If they work a Saturday or a Sunday, let them be compensated, or better yet, let them be free to spend that time with their children — hugging them, playing football,” he said. “A family like that can build peace and democracy.”
Turning to the international arena, Petro aimed direct criticism at U.S. lawmakers whom he accused of undermining Colombia’s democratic institutions. “I say this to the Secretary of State of the United States, Marco Rubio: I cannot believe that the democratic people and those who believe in the amendments to the Constitution of the United States — who today should be engaging in dialogue with the men and women from Latin American communities working over there, legally or illegally — what they need to do is open a dialogue with those communities,” Petro said.
He went further, stating: “And I know that a certain extreme-right leader in Colombia has been speaking with the Secretary of State (Marco Rubio). And I also know that there is a recording out there, which was played for me by the Attorney General, in which a certain far-right leader in Colombia — not (Álvaro) Uribe — is allied with drug trafficking, seeking to ensure that people and forces in Colombia, including business groups, and far-right actors in both Colombia and the United States, carry out a coup d’état.”
Petro challenged those in possession of the alleged recording to publish it: “I want those who have that recording to make it public in newspapers in the United States.”
“But here,” he continued, “we are not afraid of that. We know that the people of Colombia are Bolívar’s people, a people of liberty – a people that will never allow our national independence, won from the Spanish, to be taken away.”
Petro then criticized the country’s “political elites,” calling out Congress President Efraín Cepeda by name and urging him to pass a “dignified, progressive” labor reform bill. Failing that, he warned, “the popular consultation will proceed.”
He also denounced attempts to portray him as complicit in the assassination attempt against Senator Uribe Turbay. “They’re saying the attacker was encouraged by those defending the right to a popular consultation — as if democracy were to blame,” he said. “No. The popular vote is not a friend of assassins. Inequality is.”
After being challenged on Wednesday by legal experts and former magistrates of Colombia’s Constitutional Court who argue that the referendum is unconstitutional, Petro’s tone turned confrontational. “They say this is illegal, that it is indecent. They threaten to imprison my ministers. Let them try,” he said. “I would be proud, yes, proud, if I were jailed for defending the people’s right to be heard.”
Amid applause and flags of the former M-19 guerrilla, the ex-militant did pledge to “lower the tone” of his public and online rhetoric – but not the message behind his reform agenda. “They ask me to tone it down – and I will. But lowering the tone does not mean silencing truth. It does not mean kneeling,” stated Petro.
From the conspiracy theory involving “extreme right” factions in Colombia, and the United States, to his defense of a popular vote to overrule Congress, for many Colombians, it is Petro himself who is testing the limits of democracy. By circumventing one of the pillars of government, and pushing a binding referendum through executive decree, Petro has deepened the institutional crisis he claims to resist. His rhetoric of grassroots “sovereignty” and “let the people decide,” they argue, masks a deeper consolidation of autocratic power.
As of Wednesday in Cali, Petro appears determined to undermine the very institutions he pledged to uphold — including the legitimacy of the presidency itself.
