Gustavo Petro: ‘I was wrong to believe that I could make a revolution by governing’

The clock strikes 3 p.m. and the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, arrives at the Gobelins Hall in the Casa de Nariño, his official residence, visibly tired. He says that he has a “virus with everything” and he lets himself fall into the golden chair from which he will talk for almost two hours with EL PAÍS. He barely gestures and, at first, responds by making long historical circumlocutions. They disappear as the interview progresses, to give way to the tough and warrior-like Petro that everyone is familiar with, a president who, at 64 years old, defends his administration tooth and nail, but in whom the bitterness and disappointments of power are also evident.

