Budget Defeat and Museum Purge Shake Colombia Cabinet

Dozens of exhibits on social movements, feminist and LGBTQ+ activism, and Colombia’s political violence are coming down at the National Museum as President Abelardo de la Espriella’s government faces protests and a budget defeat in Congress. Their removal and Interior Minister Rodrigo Lara’s departure on Wednesday, October 21, brought a cultural dispute and a fiscal setback into the same week of upheaval.

Who Controls the Public Record

Riot police guarded the National Museum entrance in downtown Bogota on Wednesday. Demonstrators gathered outside. History student Azul Riascos said, “I find it outrageous that they want to erase part of our history.” Riascos said the government was promoting a vision of Colombia as exclusively white, Catholic and Spanish-speaking, excluding Black, Indigenous and LGBTQ+ communities.

Civil rights groups, artists and students have accused the government of censorship and warned that parts of the country’s history could disappear. The exhibits at issue cover movements and communities whose histories sit at the heart of the dispute. The government’s decisions reach beyond the National Museum: Culture Minister Paola Holguin said her ministry was reviewing and redesigning exhibitions and curatorial practices at other museums it oversees.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs renamed a courtyard that had honoured an Indigenous leader. The ministry called the change part of the president’s campaign against “woke” ideology. De la Espriella said the previous week that he wanted to stop cultural institutions from being taken over by what he calls “atheist social communism.”

Anthropologist Arturo Sanabria called the government’s approach neocolonial intervention at Wednesday’s protest. “These are imported narratives about terrorism and about being 'woke,'” he said. Political scientist Estefania Cardozo said, “The government is making serious efforts in a cultural battle that probably doesn't exist. It is inventing one to erase identities that cannot be erased because they already exist.”

Budget Defeat and Cabinet Turnover

De la Espriella announced Lara’s departure on Wednesday night, after Congress rejected the General Budget of the Nation bill over an error in its legislative procedure. Bloomberg reported that the setback over next year’s budget raised questions about the government’s ability to advance its fiscal agenda and reassure investors about the nation’s finances.

In an X post, the president said Alejandro Ordóñez would replace Lara. Ordóñez, a former inspector general and current Colombian ambassador to the OAS, is set to take over the political portfolio, which ColombiaOne described as one of the Executive Branch’s most important because of its work in Congress. Until officials formalize the appointment, Justice Minister Iván Cancino will handle the Interior Ministry’s duties.

Lara had served as Interior Minister for 76 days. His departure followed criticism from some political sectors over his relationship with lawmakers and the government’s defeat in the budget bill’s legislative process. It also came as the joint First Committees debated a bill on submitting armed groups to justice. The national government sought a framework for dealing with illegal armed groups and replacing Petro’s failed policy of total peace.

A Wider Pattern of Departures

Lara was the most senior official to leave De la Espriella’s government. ColombiaOne said the Interior Ministry ranks as the most important portfolio under the order of precedence established in the structure of the State, followed by Foreign Affairs, Finance and Defense.

Other officials have departed, too. Viviane Morales resigned from the Ministry of Education on September 2, 2026, citing personal reasons. Ricardo Valencia led the National Administrative Department of Statistics before the government terminated his appointment. Magda Yolima Amaya resigned as General Secretary of the Ministry of Information and Communications Technologies; Hannah Escobar left the Directorate of Medicines and Health Technologies at the Ministry of Health; and Carlos Rene Montoya’s tenure as president of Colpensiones lasted three days. A presidential order removed German Miranda from the National Fire Department.

The disputes involve both the government’s ability to pass its budget through Congress and its authority over publicly overseen museums and historical displays. In Washington, the White House released a report in July calling leaders of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History radical activists and ordered signs saying some exhibits were inaccurate. Museum director Anthea Hartig told Congress the report “does not fairly or accurately characterise the full body of work at the museum.”