They don't have a totally solid mass base of support so attempting to do so would trigger a reaction that in all likelihood receive US support.
this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2025
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The people just aren’t up for it. And when you don’t have the people behind you, you’ll get couped if not straight up murdered trying to do something like that.
It’s easy to get a warped view from the comforts of Western internet left that fetishizes the DPRK and Cuba, but let me tell you that very very few people even in poor Global South countries want to live like that. They’d rather believe that working hard to sell cheap goods to foreigners can at least earn them some treats in return, than to completely upend their entire lives and being confined to material poverty like in Cuba or the DPRK. You need people to be ideologically committed to your program and willing to endure the economic hardships that come with it.
This is why people took the risk to cross borders illegally because they believe that the such risks and the hardships that accompanied the arduous journey are worth more than staying where they are with little hope to offer in economic and material terms.
On top of legitimacy concerns, there's also the concern that the US might give them the Cuba treatment and blockade all trade indefinitely.
I think Petro is trying to cook up a move like this right now
What gives you that impression if I may ask? Out of all the countries in Latin America I'd think Colombia would be the least likely for something like that to succeed, just on account of how politically divided the country seems to be.
stuff like this: Petro: Disregard of Colombia's Popular Consultation Decree is Sedition - Prensa Latina
He's basically calling for a popular uprising in response to senatorial opposition. He's testing the waters, I think, for calling for the masses to rise up and establish a new system with his support. I don't know if the popular organization exists for that, but the bar is certainly lower when the president is trying to make it happen.
They were elected through bourgeois elections, meaning several of the bourgeois checks and balances are still in place.
Until the countries have more popular struggle, the system will remain as is, probably.
What do you think of the idea that Petro wants to push for some kind of popular uprising to consolidate power against the bourgeois systems? I feel like his anti-institutional calls to action lately are going in that direction, but also I might just be seeing what I want to see.
Close to zero chance. For starter's Petro is anticommunist, or at best thinks of communism as "muh authoritarianism". I do think he is a populist though and wishes to see popular movement as a way to further enhance his social democratic party and position.