Colombia’s left took to the streets on Wednesday against President Abelardo de la Espriella and fared better than expected. Despite doubts about its ability to mobilize people, fears of police repression stoked by the president himself, the threat of rain and the fact that the protest fell on a weekday, thousands of Colombians demonstrated peacefully for hours. The marches, seen in the country’s main cities, were the first test of the ability of a battered left to mobilize the grassroots after losing power to a right-wing outsider allied openly with the United States and who embodies everything that progressives abhor.

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