The Colombian government announced on Tuesday that it will convene the vote of the popular consultation by decree if the Senate does not pronounce before June 1 on the first initiative with which the president, Gustavo Petro, seeks to refloat his labor reform, one of the main flags of his agenda, which was denied in that legislative chamber last month.
“The Government, if the Senate does not pronounce from here to June 1, will convene the popular consultation to elections for what has to do with the 12 questions of the labor reform,” said Interior Minister Armando Benedetti, at a press conference.
On May 14, the Senate plenary sank the first popular consultation, which had 12 questions about labor matters, with 49 votes in favor and 47 against.
After that political setback, the Government presented a new proposal last week, the second, to convene a popular consultation that seeks to boost labor reform, this time with four additional questions regarding the proposal that was rejected by the plenary of this Chamber.
The four additional questions have to do with health issues.
However, Minister Benedetti said today that that day – May 14 – there were process vices because what would be voted and, therefore, the pronouncement of the plenary does not exist.
“What happened in that tortuous session is that it is clear that the president of the Senate says: ‘Next point of the agenda’, the secretary reads the agenda, turns off the microphone and the president of the Senate says at once ‘open the record to vote the consultation’, ‘” Benedetti explained.
In that context, the minister added: “In the fifth law, article 125 says that everything that will be voted has to be read and there must be a proposition. In this case, there had to be a concept and the object of what was going to vote was not read; then, the Senate did not pronounce.”
Finally, Minister Benedetti assured that “the working class was made a ‘playful’ (trap) in that session, they lost it (spoiling), so it is necessary to defend the rights of workers.”
President Petro has described as “fraud” the decision of the Plenary of the Senate to knock down the call to a popular consultation on labor reform and called social movements to meet to “take the next step.”
In the midst of these discussions, the workers’ centrals, the historical pact (government party) and various social organizations are prepared for a “great national unemployment” this Wednesday and Thursday in the main cities of the country to support the popular consultation and social reforms promoted by the Petro government that have been rejected in Congress.
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