The unwritten manual of Congress says that in the second legislative year, which is about to end, the power relationship to approve laws is shared between what the government wants and what congressmen want. Under the mandate of Gustavo Petro it is no exception.
In the next ten days, the government can achieve the approval of two of the social reforms promised by President Petro, pension and education, and advance the labor reform. But at a political and ideological cost.
Whether the Senate plenary turns the education law into law will depend on how much the government gives in its scope, because today—as happened in the Senate’s First Commission—it does not have the votes to ensure that the project turns out the way it wants.
It is a dilemma because this negotiation with independent and opposition sectors, which gives political viability to the initiative, clashes with what the bases of Petrism want. Fecode, the teachers union that supported Petro and financed his campaign, started a strike to demand the withdrawal of the education reform. He says he considers it regressive and is particularly opposed to teacher evaluation.
The problem, as some voices of the Historical Pact admit, is that if this reform is not carried out now, when the government still maintains a minimum of maneuver in Congress, it will be very unlikely later.
“We are facing a political struggle and it saddens me because one does not win a government every four years,” says Gabriel Becerra, the representative who is leading the debate on education reform. “We have never had such a good scenario, but one does not do politics only with desire. We have correlations of forces in the Senate that have been adverse.”
The outlook with the pension no longer depends only on giving in and agreeing. The ability of the government and its allies to counteract the opposition’s delaying maneuvers comes into play in this equation. For now, they are losing the game, but there is always time.
Education moves to and fro in Fecode
The momentum with which the education reform left the House of Representatives two months ago collided with the reality of the First Committee of the Senate, elusive for the government. As it is a statutory law that requires absolute majorities, which in that commission are 12 out of 21 senators, the numbers did not support the ruling party.
Last week, when the third debate opened, those majorities were on the side of opposition and independent senators: three from Cambio Radical (David Luna, Carlos Motoa and Jorge Benedetti), three conservatives (Germán Blanco, Óscar Barreto and Juan Carlos García ), two from the Democratic Center (Paloma Valencia and María Fernanda Cabal), one from La U (Alfredo Deluque), plus Humberto de la Calle and Jonathan Ferney Pulido (who calls himself Jota Pe). The liberal Alejandro Carlos Chacón was in the middle, supporting things from both sides.
The Minister of Education, Aurora Vergara, and the Petrista senators María José Pizarro and Ariel Ávila, had no choice but to sit with that group to try to save the reform. And they did so by giving in to the spirit of the articles.
There were adjustments in linking teaching evaluation to results, in defining the mixed education system (with which private ones can access public financing) and because it eliminated the obligation of direct government of students in universities. For example, that the rector was chosen by them, something unprecedented in most universities in the world.
The political agreement, which was sealed with an express vote on what was negotiated and opened the doors for the reform to become law in plenary, did not sit well with the government’s bases. The Historical Pact bench of the Chamber rejected it and Fecode announced the strike. For this reason, the project left Minister Vergara in the worst scenario.
The official came out today to say that she is not going to withdraw the project and that she will seek a new attempt at consensus with the senators and Fecode. It is a path with little mileage because being a statutory one, the reform must be approved no matter what before June 20.
If the government wants to maintain the basis of the agreement of the First Commission and guarantee the votes in Plenary, it must respect the presentation that must be filed no later than tomorrow so that the project can be discussed in the plenary session on Monday, June 17. If, on the contrary, it accepts the call of Fecode and some sectors of the Pact to present an alternative proposal that eliminates the concerns of teachers (evaluation, financing and tertiary education), there is a risk that the votes will not be enough.
In plenary, the absolute majorities are 53 and, as happened with the pension, the government is finding it difficult to reach that number. And with time against, more.
The middle path, then, is to respect the essence of the agreed presentation and try to make adjustments through proposals that are resolved by a fair vote. The Petrista senators Clara López and Carlos Benavides have been in charge of filing these proposals for changes and supporting them for the final debate.
“We have differences in about ten articles, not in the entire reform approved in the First Commission of the Senate. We must insist on making the necessary adjustments,” says representative Gabriel Becerra.
A fourth scenario that is emerging is that the government itself gives up on the reform and lets it sink, as requested by the most radical leaders of Fecode. For this there are two ways: one, for Minister Vergara to ask the congressmen who signed the project to withdraw their support, and two, for them to present a file proposal and vote on it.
The representative of the Historical Pact, Erick Velasco, with a history in the student movement, is one of the promoters of that idea. “As it stands today, the reform must be withdrawn or scuttled. The most important agreements are those made with the people. The current text is deeply regressive and represents an unacceptable setback in the fight for an educational system that promotes quality, democratic access and the strengthening of public offerings,” says Velasco.
One of their arguments is that an article that prioritized investment in infrastructure in public educational centers was eliminated. “In article 7, literal F was eliminated, which prioritized the strengthening of public colleges and higher education institutions. By 2023, less than 15% of public schools had adequate access to public services and educational infrastructure conditions are serious, particularly in rural areas,” he says.
The opposition does not rule out the government going down that path. “I read all of this as a strategy to continue maintaining the soft coup discourse,” says Senator David Luna, from Cambio Radical.
At the pension, Niño needs Calle
Today the government once again showed weakness with the pension reform and left it reeling. She called the plenary session at 11 in the morning to try to speed it up as much as possible and only around 5 in the afternoon, six hours later, did she manage to officially open the debate with the votes on the impediments.
Due to the negligence of the official bench, a Radical Change proposal was on the verge of removing the reform from the agenda. He got into a block of proposals that few heard and was put to a vote. When representatives of the Pact realized the move and the Minister of the Interior, Luis Fernando Velasco, arrived at the plenary session, they suspended the vote that at that time was in favor of the postponement.
The leadership of the plenary session has been in the hands of the conservative Fernando Niño, an ally of the government and not the liberal Andrés Calle, involved in the Ungrd scandal and who has stood aside because he is recused. Niño has less influence on the management of the plenary session, he lets the representatives speak longer and does not speed up the debate.
The opposition’s strategy, which starts by trying to modify the agenda, involves trying to break the quorum and extends with recusals to all the government’s allies, is having its effects. In today’s session, the majorities of the liberals, conservatives and La U left because they have challenges and asked the Ethics Commission to resolve them so they can enter without problems. Maintaining the quorum (94 present) has been a struggle.
The government has tried to discourage challenges by citing a concept from the Constitutional Court that says that congressmen who receive them can continue to be part of the debate while Ethics carries out the process. That persuasion hasn’t worked with everyone.
The first five impediments were voted with the minimum. About 85 more are missing.
The pensioner is hurt by time. Tomorrow’s session will be a Plenary Congress to elect the Comptroller General. Then one from the opposition will come, by statute, and it is the parties that are there, Cambio Radical and Centro Democrático, who define the agenda. They are not going to put the pension among their priorities.
The government is going to insist that it be rescheduled on Friday. “Everything is difficult,” says the speaker coordinator, Martha Alfonso Jurado.
If they manage to remove the impediments soon, the process will be all uphill. The negative proposal must be discussed and if it is rejected, there are already more than 400 proposals for changes to the text of the positive reform that must be reviewed, discussed and in some cases voted on.
With the clock against, voices are beginning to sound from the Pact that fuel President Petro’s complaints that Congress is blocking the reforms. “This House would assume the political cost of sinking, perhaps, the most consensual reform project in this government. The government gave way in the Senate, the benches gave way. We have to define in the details. We cannot fall into the traps of the opposition,” said David Racero, representative of the Historical Pact.
Velasco, the minister of politics, has been in meetings with the benches all day to try to secure support, even if they have to schedule sessions on atypical days, such as Friday or even on weekends.
If neither the pension nor the education program manage to emerge before June 20, the government’s commitment to fulfilling its program remains up in the air.
In the unwritten manual of Congress it also says that the third legislative year, which would start on July 20, power passes into the hands of congressmen. And if the government did not succeed in the second, in the third it is more difficult.
