Everything was ready for the plenary session of the House of Representatives to vote this Thursday on the conciliation of the political reformjust as the Senate did at dawn.
On paper, there were no problems, but around noon some congressmen denounced a ‘mickey’ in the closed lists article that entangled the approval of the conciliation of one of the flagship projects of President Gustavo Petro.
In addition, it unleashed a confrontation in the government coalition, as congressmen from the Historical Pact accused some members of the Green Alliance of wanting to sabotage the project.
“They want to throw dirty water at the pact, coincidence or strategy to knock down the reform? This is a sabotage by some members of the green ”, assured the representative María del Mar Pizarro, who accused Senator Ariel Ávila, of Alianza Verde, of being the author of the monkey.
The fight was generated around the second transitory paragraph of article 8 of the constitutional reform – it has already passed its first four debates – which speaks of closed lists.
Basically what this fragment says is that current congressmen, as well as deputies and councilors, will have priority on these closed lists for the next election.
“For the organization of these lists, for the only time, the order of election, without gender conditioning, of the last constitutional period for the respective corporation may be taken into account,” says the text. In addition, this means that the gender parity of which the reform speaks would not be respected.
“They filled their mouths saying that they defended parity, women, Afro and indigenous peoples, but when it comes to legislating they decide to ignore these sectors to give re-election to current Congressmen, mostly men from traditional parties,” he commented, for her part, the representative Jennifer Pedraza.
Ariel Ávila, who was accused by the members of the Pact of being the author of the so-called ‘mico’, clarified that this paragraph was “an initiative of the traditional parties” and told the members of the coalition with which Petro came to power “ You must learn to defend what your government proposes and not blame others for its failure.
And I accuse Pizarro of having “poor and bad management in the Chamber”, so that in order to “appear he must slander and draw attention. She has already been denied by heads of her party and yet she does not retract it. It is unfortunate that moral assassination practices continue to be recurrent in sectors that claim to be transparent”.
This situation caused the debate to be delayed, since some congressmen warned that they were legislating in their benefit, for which more than 140 impediments were filed and voted on for more than five hours.
Once the impediments were denied, the report was voted on and the plenary endorsed the text. There were 103 votes and in favor and 13 against. However, a considerable number of congressmen, especially from the Green Alliance, abandoned the discussion.
This project promises to put an end to patronage and electoral corruption, as well as to modify some current political rules. “We are incurring a clear conflict of interest by voting for conciliation to secure our positions on the closed lists for 2026. There will be multiple demands for the loss of investiture that will be promoted by the same congressmen who oppose this aberration,” said the Green Alliance congresswoman. Catherine Juvinao.
This paragraph came in the original presentation, but it had been eliminated in the First Commission of the Chamber after a proposal by the ‘green’ representative Duvalier Sánchez, who questioned whether it had been revived. “We are legislated to benefit ourselves, to screw ourselves in power. That is what he wanted to avoid (…) but in the reconciliation of the document they put it back in ”.
Crisis in the coalition?
The political reform has been the subject of many controversies and has revealed some fractures in the government coalition, made up mainly of the Pacto Histórico, Polo Democrático, Alianza Verde, ‘la U’ and the Liberal and Conservative parties. Among the doubts regarding the initiative is the establishment of closed lists, as well as the so-called revolving door, which allows congressmen to resign from their seats to be ministers.
In addition, the project contemplates aspects such as 100 percent state financing of campaigns, change of age to be a senator -now it would be 25 years old- and eliminate powers of the Attorney General’s Office to sanction those elected by popular vote.
MATTHEW GARCIA
POLITICAL WRITING