From “coup d'oeuvre” to “coup d'état”

The ability of all politicians to use language and rhetoric, especially in times of crisis and on the eve of elections, to further their own partisan, corporate, union, and even personal interests is proverbial. We are witnessing this with particular intensity and deception at this time, during the troubled and torpedoed labor reform presented by the government to Congress and in the Senate's recent refusal to convene the Popular Consultation (PC). Therefore, it is worth analyzing the rhetorical and legal excesses, which go so far as to deny reality and what is obvious to everyone.

Hannah Arendt had already lucidly noted this in her essay "Lying in Politics" : "The deliberate denial of factual truth—the capacity to lie—and the capacity to change facts—the capacity to act—are interconnected," and later she adds, "Action is, of course, the true raw material of politics." And that is precisely what labor and healthcare reform are about: political action and social mobilization, to make the Social State of Law a reality, because only in this way would it cease to be a constitutional promise that has always been postponed, as it has been for 34 years.

The Senate Cockpit

Without a doubt, in the session of last Wednesday, May 14, the Senate denied the CP by 49 votes to 47, in the midst of a chaotic and circus-like session, more typical of a cockpit that, as we saw on all the television news and in the newspaper photographs, had nothing to do with a deliberation, since it was an outburst of shouts, insults and exclamations that obscured a political decision where what was at stake was the real validity of Article 3 of the Political Constitution : " Sovereignty resides exclusively in the people, from whom public power emanates. The people exercise it directly or through their representatives, in the terms established by the Constitution." There is no doubt that this Pyrrhic majority of two votes ignored the first part of the aforementioned article because it prevented all of us, as citizens or people, from exercising our sovereignty in a direct manner. The Senate appropriated exclusive sovereignty based on Article 104 of the Constitution and Statutory Law 1757 of 2015, Article 20, Section "D," which effectively require its approval for the holding of the Constitution. Thus, the principle that "sovereignty resides exclusively in the people"—that is, in all citizens or the people—became a dead letter, as two senators appropriated and confiscated it. We would then have to conclude that sovereignty resides in the Senate, not in the people or the citizens.

Conclusion: The so-called " Political Country" prevented the expression of the "National Country," as Gaitán stated as early as 1946: "In Colombia there are two countries: the political country, which thinks about its jobs, its mechanics, and its power, and the national country, which thinks about its work, its health, its culture, all of which are neglected by the political country. The political country has different paths than the national country. What a tremendous drama in the history of a people!" This "representative democracy" of the "Political Country" denied and annulled, in reality, the exercise and expression of participatory democracy through the Popular Consultation. Such is the factual and normative truth that prevails, which corroborates a well-known and lapidary truth expressed by Ferdinand Lasalle in his famous lecture What is a Constitution?: “Constitutional problems are not, primarily, problems of law, but of power: the true Constitution of a country resides only in the real and effective factors of power that govern in that country, and written Constitutions have no value or are durable except when they give faithful expression to the factors of power prevailing in social reality.”

A Congress against the workers

Precisely for this reason, this entrenched "Political Country" represented in Congress has lacked the will to comply with Article 53 of the Political Constitution, which for 34 years has mandated it to legislate in favor of workers, as is required in every social state governed by the rule of law, "founded on respect for human dignity, on the work and solidarity of its constituents, and on the prevalence of the general interest." But it hasn't done so because the majority of congressmen in this "Political Country" represent the real power wielded, in cities and rural areas, by privileged minorities. Hence, it is appropriate to transcribe Article 53 in its entirety to confirm why the Labor Statute has not been issued: "Congress shall issue the labor statute. The corresponding law shall take into account at least the following minimum fundamental principles: Equality of opportunity for workers; minimum living wage, proportional to the quantity and quality of work; job stability; non-waiver of minimum benefits established in labor standards; powers to compromise and conciliate on uncertain and debatable rights; a more favorable situation for the worker in case of doubt in the application and interpretation of formal sources of law; primacy of reality over formalities established by the subjects of labor relations; guarantee of social security, training, and necessary rest; special protection for women, maternity, and minor workers. The State guarantees the right to timely payment and periodic adjustment of legal pensions. Duly ratified international labor conventions are part of domestic legislation. The law, contracts, “Work agreements and conventions cannot undermine the freedom, human dignity or rights of workers.”

Prevaricators by omission?

34 years have passed and Congress has not complied with what is ordered by Article 53. Such negligence constitutes a kind of prevarication by omission, according to Article 414 of the penal code: The public servant who omits, delays, refuses or denies an act proper to his functions, will incur imprisonment of thirty-two (32) to ninety (90) months, a fine of thirteen point thirty-three (13.33) to seventy-five (75) current legal monthly minimum wages, and disqualification from the exercise of public rights and functions for eighty (80) months. And it is, because Article 133 of the Constitution orders that all "Members of directly elected collegiate bodies represent the people, and must act in consultation with justice and the common good." An action that congressmen have omitted to date, because in addition to exceptionally consulting "justice and the common good", what most of them have done is represent partisan, clientelist interests, Corporate, union, and even criminal organizations, in part thanks to the indolence, ignorance, or pressing needs of citizens who re-elect them every four years, trapped in their clientelist, bureaucratic, and welfare-based networks. That's why they now prevent all of us, as citizens or people, from directly deciding in a referendum on "justice and the common good" in labor relations and the health system. They deny us sovereignty and treat us like serfs! As if we were incapable of discerning about justice and the common good! This is how they prevent us from being a real factor of power. And, to perpetuate themselves in Congress, they now all sing a strident chorus and perform the comic opera of being "defenders and saviors of democracy!" against a supposedly imminent "coup d'état" by the Executive Branch, when the latter announces that it will call the referendum by decree, but also that it will submit to the decision of the Constitutional Court on the matter.

From “Coup d'Opinion” to “Coup d'Etat”

Without a doubt, this "Political Country" has always known how to use the grammar of power with ingenious euphemisms, such as when the leading liberal Darío Echandía legitimized Gustavo Rojas Pinilla's coup d'état in 1953 with the expression "Coup of Opinion" [i] . Later, they called the National Front formula Democracy, that pinpoint miti-miti between liberals and conservatives that divided the State for 16 years for the benefit of the "Political Country" and gave rise to the guerrillas in the international context of the Cold War. That is why now everyone sings the cacophonous melody of the "Coup d'état" to hide the fact that for 34 years they have dealt a mortal blow to the Social State of Law and to the real validity of the 1991 Constitution, using legal formalities, clauses, and interpretations of "constitutional experts." Experts who flout the spirit of the 1991 Charter with fallacious arguments such as the "independence of the branches of public power," "checks and balances," "legal security," and the invocation of a "rule of law" and an institutional framework that has failed to guarantee the fundamental rights of millions of Colombians, whom they now call upon to defend it against an alleged executive dictatorship, but also deny them a voice and a decision in the Popular Consultation in the name of democracy and institutional stability. Finally, to prevent these citizens from expressing themselves on the most vital issues, such as their right to work and health, they are now rushing to approve the government's labor reform, which until a few days ago they called populist and counterproductive. What diligent and consistent senators we have! Only when they saw that the people took to the streets and could hold them accountable in the upcoming elections in 2026 did they take labor reform seriously! That's why they aborted the Popular Consultation and are now talking about a "coup d'état." The rest is constitutional and jurisprudential rubbish that will condemn the CP to oblivion, since there is the possibility of a last-minute transaction between the Executive and the opposition, all in the interest of preserving that sacrosanct "democratic institutional stability and the rule of law", which will allow all and sundry to be reelected in 2026. Thus, the "Political Country" indefinitely prolongs its life at the expense of the "National Country". It matters little that it is dying under the rule of de facto powers that confine it, extort it, and murder its leaders, such as Aurelio Araujo of the AWA people and his two bodyguards from the National Protection Unit (UNP), Jesús Albeiro Chávez and Jackson Solarte, in events that occurred in a rural area of ​​the municipality of Ricaurte, near the sector known as Ospina Pérez, in the coastal foothills of Nariño [ii] . “In the first five months of the year, 71 social leaders have been murdered in Colombia, and 18 of those cases occurred in the department of Cauca, the most dangerous area of ​​the country for human rights defenders,” [iii] according to the most recent report by the Institute for Development and Peace Studies (Indepaz). What rule of law are these constitutionalists, academics, and their fierce defenders in Congress talking about?

[i] https://www.eltiempo.com/colombia/otras-ciudades/dictadura-de-rojas-pinilla-golpe-de-opinion-que-decepciono-a-colombia-506522

[ii] https://caracol.com.co/2025/06/03/masacre-en-ricaurte-asesinado-lider-indigena-awa-de-narino-y-sus-dos-escoltas/

[iii] https://elpais.com/america-colombia/2025-06-03/con-o-sin-cese-al-fuego-la-paz-total-aun-no-logra-frenar-los-asesinatos-contra-lideres-sociales.html