Almost nothing remains of the overwhelming legislative coalition with which the government of Gustavo Petro began. The days when the then former president of the Senate, Roy Barreras, and the former president of the House of Representatives, David Racero, obtained majorities to easily approve the tax reform, the total peace law and the National Development Plan seem far away and difficult. to repeat. Now, less than 15 days before the end of the legislature, the three great social reforms promoted by the president are on the brink of shipwreck. The political crisis generated by the audios of the former ambassador to Venezuela Armando Benedetti, in which he insinuates that shady money entered the campaign, is a new obstacle in the process of bills that seek to change the health, pension and labor. Added to the scandal, which also involves Laura Sarabia, Petro’s former chief of staff and right-hand man, is a weakened coalition, without the votes of the La U and Conservador parties, and with those of the Liberal and the Green in doubt, and the lack of time to discuss and approve the reforms.
This Monday David Racero announced that the discussions of these reforms in the Chamber are frozen until it is possible to “dialogue again” and “rebuild the government coalition.” “Discussions as important as these, which imply a profound transformation for the country, cannot be mediated by external factors that lead to a non-positive outcome for Colombia,” the president of the Chamber told the press, a visible figure when the Senate does not has a president on property. The decision, which implies in principle that this Tuesday the health reform will not be discussed in the plenary session of the House of Representatives nor the labor reform in the seventh commission, as planned, comes after several opposition congressmen requested the suspension of the debates. Despite these statements, the House agenda for this Tuesday maintains the debate in plenary of the House of Representatives and puts the health reform as the first project to be discussed. In dialogue with EL PAÍS, the representative to the chamber Cathy Juvinao, from the Green party, expressed her bewilderment: “One does not understand if Racero went ahead to make an announcement that did not have the endorsement of President Petro or what is happening. It’s a very confusing message.”
David Luna, a senator from the opposition Cambio Radical, requested that the three reforms be shelved. “Given the very serious confessions about the financing of President Gustavo Petro’s campaign, the full Congress must archive the reforms presented, minimally because they are illegitimate. They want to play with the health and pocket of Colombians, ”he wrote on his Twitter account. The senator told EL PAÍS that the announcement by the president of the Chamber to suspend the process of the reforms seeks to avoid a political defeat by vote “The crisis can lead to the health reform not having the majorities to be approved in second debate”.
In dialogue with EL PAÍS, the senator of the Green Alliance Ariel Ávila, an ally of the Government on some issues and a critic on others, explained the three main problems that, in his opinion, the Government’s projects face. First, a weak, almost non-existent coalition. “For 45 days the president declared, absurdly, the end of the government coalition and they have not been able to rearm it. So, right now there is a semi-paralysis”. Second, a misuse of time: “The reforms were presented very late. There are many who have not even passed a first debate. Congress only has two weeks of ordinary legislature left and then the extra sessions that the Government has not yet requested. And third, the most visible today, the political crisis. “There is a delicate problem with the Sarabia – Benedetti scandal that makes the government lose legitimacy,” says Ávila.
The senator’s conclusion is not very encouraging for the Government: “Many of the most important reforms for President Petro are going to collapse, others are going to be left with one or two debates and they are going to pass to the other legislature, but with changes. This crisis ended up paralyzing Congress ”, he sentenced. The senator of the Democratic Center María Fernanda Cabal, a fierce opponent of Petro, agrees with the diagnosis: “The process of the reforms is going to be seriously affected by the denunciations of Armando Benedetti,” she says in conversation with EL PAÍS. And she adds: “With these latest events, the coalition that had been breaking up has come undone. President Petro has no governance. If a survey were carried out to measure his approval, it would be below 20% ”. Cabal’s calculations are not very far from the most recent data: on Monday morning W Radio published the Datexco Opinómetro survey, which shows a 26% favorability of the president, the lowest in the 20 measurements it has made. The measurement was made when the scandal was just beginning, before Semana magazine published Benedetti’s audios.
The real chances that the health reform will be approved in this legislature, as Petro wanted, are nil. He still needs to pass three debates in Congress and the benches of the Democratic Center, Cambio Radical, La U, the Conservative Party, the Liberal Party and even some congressmen from the Green Party have expressed their disagreement with the central points of the reform led by the branch minister, Guillermo Alfonso Jaramillo. However, since it was already approved in the seventh commission of the Chamber, he can continue his process in Congress the other semester without losing that advance.
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On the other hand, the pension and labor reforms do not have this advantage. Led by Minister Gloria Inés Ramírez, not only will they not be approved by Congress before the end of this period, even if the Government calls special sessions and includes them in them, but it is very likely that they will definitely collapse into the not even pass their first debate. That would be a strong political blow for the Government.
The scenario for the three reforms to the Constitution that the Government has promoted since the beginning of the year is not very favorable either. The one that would allow recreational cannabis for adult use, which is scheduled to be debated this Tuesday in the first committee of the Senate, has the right times and votes, but it also needs to pass in plenary. The same thing happens to the agrarian jurisdiction and the recognition of the peasantry as subjects of rights. A single day of delay, something very probable with the current weakness of the Government, would definitely sink them. By modifying the Constitution, they cannot be debated in extras. Either they overcome the debates they need before June 20 or they sink.
Cathy Juvinao, from the Green party, assured that the best thing for the government would be to withdraw all the reforms and avoid defeats that would leave it weaker: “There is no political moment in Congress for them to be approved,” she said in conversation with EL PAÍS. And she insisted: “I don’t think they have any real chance. Even if they are discussed, they can sink and that would further fracture the president’s relationship with Congress. Juvinao announced that several congressmen from his party are going to request that an internal discussion be opened to decide whether to continue officially as part of the government coalition or to declare independence, despite the fact that among their ranks there are the president’s bishops such as senator Inti Asprilla, and that the president handed over to that party, headed by Carlos Ramón González, the management of the Presidency department in his cabinet romp just a month and a half ago. “It’s not that we want to jump ship on the first issue, just that after looking at the latest facts of possible funding that seems opaque that possibility should be discussed.”
EL PAÍS consulted Alexander López, Wilson Arias and María Fernanda Carrascal, the three congressmen from the Historical Pact and government allies, but at the time of publishing this article, none had answered the questions.
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