The second year of Congress, which begins this Thursday, July 20, will be difficult for President Gustavo Petro. His desire to approve as soon as possible the social reforms he promised in the campaign will be faced with the lack of majorities in the Senate and the House of Representatives, with the regional elections in October and, above all, with the resurgence of an opposition led by the Democratic Center and former Vice President Germán Vargas Lleras. who has proposed to make a legislative block against the great initiatives of the Government. From now on, the health reform must begin the discussion in the plenary of the House of Representatives and the pension will reach the plenary of the Senate. The labor and education will be presented in the coming days and will start from scratch their process in Congress.
Unlike the first months of the last legislature, in which the government managed to get the full Congress to approve its tax reform, the Total Peace Law and the Development Plan, now the legislative coalition is weak and worn. At that time, the executive had the vote of 75 of the 106 senators and 125 of the 186 representatives to the House. Today, it no longer has the support of the Conservative Party or the U party, which a few months ago went from being government parties to declaring independence. That decision, promoted by President Petro himself, had an effect on the fall of the labor reform and on the little progress of the health and pension reforms in the final stretch of the last legislative period. The Conservatives have 15 senators and 25 House representatives, and the U Party has 11 senators and 15 House representatives. Their votes will be key to the approval or sinking of any reform.
The government is also not guaranteed the full support of the Liberal party, which in theory remains part of the coalition, but in practice is divided and does not support many of the president's important initiatives, such as health reform. Something similar is happening in the Green Party. They hold important positions in the Casa de Nariño, such as the leadership of DAPRE, and have supported almost all of Petro's reforms. But some senators and representatives have repeatedly expressed their desire to make a leap to independence. Congresswoman Cathy Juvinao, for example, said it some time ago in an interview with EL PAÍS when the scandal of Armando Benedetti and Laura Sarabia unleashed a political crisis: "It is not that we want to jump ship at the first problem, only that after analyzing the latest facts of a possible financing that seems opaque, the possibility of declaring independence should be discussed." This idea has been supported by congressmen such as Jota P Hernández, the most voted of the Green, or Katherine Miranda, representative in the Chamber for Bogotá.
The government then seems to have guaranteed only the unrestricted support of the Historic Pact bloc, weakened by the departure from Congress of Senators Roy Barreras and Gustavo Bolívar; and the Common Party, made up of former fighters of the extinct FARC guerrillas. With these negative calculations, it is necessary that the Interior Ministry, led by Luis Fernando Velasco, manages to recompose the majorities if it wants the reforms to pass their process in the legislature and become law next year. Senator Ariel Ávila sums it up well to El País: "That legislature is going to be very complicated because of the number of reforms and the levels of dispute that are coming. It is up to Minister Velasco to reassemble the coalition so that the laws are approved."
In the month of recess that the congressmen had, the talks between the government and the traditional parties were quiet. Velasco, however, has had meetings with congressmen separately. It seems that his bet is no longer to convince the presidents of the parties, but to win one by one the votes of the senators and representatives. This is what he explained recently in an interview with the newspaper El Espectador: "The first task is to reconfigure the strength of a group of congressmen from different parties who believe in our reforms. You can't make a political agreement if people don't believe in that agreement, because this is not a transactional thing." And when asked if he would meet with César Gaviria, president of the Liberal Party, or with Efraín Cepeda, of the Conservative Party, Velasco replied: "I would sit down with the directors of the parties to talk about the essence of our political project, but it is with the congressmen with whom I sit down to make the laws."
María José Pizarro, senator of the Historic Pact and one of President Petro's biggest allies in Congress, is more optimistic. In a conversation with El Pais, he said that the objective is to work with the "democrats who exist in the other parties and who are committed to the reforms for which Colombia voted." Pizarro insists that the most important goal is to reach agreements and consensus that allow the approval of a new health, pension and labor model. The senator recognizes that the great challenge that the government now has is "to build with the parties that have declared independence." He is realistic, but maintains the illusion: "I see that the situation is progressing more calmly than the last legislature ended, but we will have to wait for the debates to begin."
In addition to the absence of legislative majorities, the government will have to deal in the first months with the October elections for mayors and governors. Normally, in the months leading up to the vote, congressmen are more focused on the electoral results of their regions than on parliamentary initiatives. Most likely, there will be absenteeism and indiscipline from many senators. Senator Paloma Valencia, of the opposition Democratic Center party, explained it this week in the podcast A Fondo of journalist María Jimena Duzán: "In these first months Congress will be slow because everyone is with the attention in the elections. In addition, politicians from the traditional parties have understood that approving the Petro reforms would have negative electoral consequences. Many abstain because of a possible punishment vote."
Another factor that the government will have to overcome to approve its reforms is that the Historic Pact will no longer have the presidency of either the Senate or the House of Representatives as in the first legislature. Instead of Roy Barreras and Alexander Lopez, allies of Petro, Angelica Lozano of the Green Alliance party will most likely be the president of the Senate. Senator Lozano has supported the government's reforms, but in recent years she has had deep disagreements with the president. In the Chamber will no longer be David Racero, the president's squire, but Andrés Calle, of the Liberal Party.
The last stumbling block that Petro's reforms will encounter will be a strengthened opposition. Although they still do not have majorities in the legislature, they have received more citizen support after the political crisis unleashed by Armando Benedetti's statements of possible illegal financing of Gustavo Petro's presidential campaign. The president, in the last month, reached unfavorable levels of 69%. If the opposition, led by the Democratic Center and Radical Change parties, manages to spread that dissent to a legislative bloc against the reforms, as recently proposed by former Vice President Germán Vargas, the government will have little chance of approving its campaign proposals. For now Petro does not have the majorities, but neither does the opposition. Therefore, the second legislative year will also be the one in which the balance is consolidated for one side or the other.
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