The parliamentary alphabet indicates that when the Casa Rosada is in a hurry to approve a certain law, it is best
to advance in a parallel negotiation
with Deputies and the Senate.
It is not a matter that one chamber later
retouches or reverses
what the other approved and the project has to be dealt with again by the original chamber.
With the Omnibus Law that was generally approved this Friday in Deputies - the debate on the articles is still pending, scheduled for Tuesday - this practice was missing, which in Congressional jargon is known as
"working in a mirror."
The truth is that the senators from the different opposition blocs potentially allied with the ruling party followed the debate in the Deputies in recent days, expecting what would finally be approved.
But since they were not consulted for the previous legislative treatment, some now propose
to review the text
and, in case of disagreement,
introduce modifications
.
"In the Senate the discussion starts from scratch,"
warns a senator from a dialogue bloc.
Along the same lines, another legislator anticipates:
"Here begins another negotiation. And it will be tougher than that of Deputies
because there are several senators who do not have a governor as their leader."
The Senate Presidency says that conversations about the treatment of the Omnibus Law have already started.
In this framework, they detail, were the recent meetings that Vice President Victoria Villarruel held in recent days with
Javier Milei
and with senators from the UCR, for example.
The Senate, in session.
Photo: Press/Senate.
But opposition blocs maintain that
the content of the law was not discussed
, and that that is what matters to them.
The initial idea of the ruling party was that the treatment in the Senate would be as abbreviated as possible.
But he will have problems achieving it:
the senators plan to ask for invitations to be sent to quite a few exhibitors.
"Not four of cups"
"We are going to ask for first-class guests and not four for drinks. (Economy Minister Luis) Caputo will have to come," says a senator whom the ruling party needs to have a quorum and move forward with the initiative promoted by the Pink House.
Villarruel has not yet made it known which commissions will intervene in the treatment of the project in the Senate or which senator will preside over the plenary session.
In Deputies, it was chaired by the head of the General Legislation commission,
Gabriel Bornoroni
.
Will it be the same in the Senate?
In the Upper House, that commission is also headed by a libertarian,
Bartolomé Abdala
from San Luis .
The other question still open is that the Senate would not be able to discuss the project in the chamber before the end of the period of extraordinary sessions, which expires on February 15.
Thus, Milei should extend it again.
He has already extended them: he had originally established that the extraordinary ones would last until January 31.
The Government
underestimated how difficult
the negotiation in Congress was going to be.
At her start as president of the Senate, Villarruel built a majority that allowed her to remove the provisional presidency from Peronism and retain control of the commissions in the upper house.
But the allies with whom she achieved that majority are not unconditional of the ruling party.
It seemed very difficult, for example, for the three senators from Córdoba to vote in favor of the
privatization of public companies located in that province
.
Finally, these companies were dictated on Thursday of the project that was negotiated in Deputies.
But we will still have to wait for the treatment to begin in the Senate to see what observations arise.
La Libertad Avanza has
only 7 senators of its own
and does not have its own number to advance the commission's opinion nor does it have a quorum to meet.
For the latter, he needs the help of 30 senators from other opposition blocks
.
UxP has 33 of its own.
Several senators, on the other hand, answer to the governors of their provinces.
If there is something that was left open in the Deputies, they will try to close it now in the Senate.
And the arithmetic of Deputies does not automatically transfer to the Senate
.
For example, the governor of Tucumán, the Peronist
Osvaldo Jaldo
, ordered three deputies from his party to leave the UxP bloc in the lower house, form their own bench and accompany the Omnibus Law.
Osvaldo Jaldo and Juan Manzur.
But one of the Peronist senators for Tucumán is
Juan Manzur,
Jaldo's political rival.
One unknown to be revealed is what, for example,
Sandra Mendoza
, Peronist senator for Tucumán, will do.
They say that she gets along well with Jaldo, but that she is more similar to the former governor.