International

Will Colombian Congress approve President Petro’s reforms?

Photo: Agata Radio

August 9|

The change of the boards of directors of Congress, in this second legislative year that has just begun in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, is not a guarantee that the Colombian government will be able to move forward with the first three social reforms promoted during the first legislative year that did not see the green light due to timing: the health, pension and labor reforms, said political scientist Guillermo Segovia.

”The three could not pass in the normal procedure in the debates because they evidenced not only that there is a big problem that in part was the justification for the election of this government, the government was elected on the basis that there was an accumulation of protests related to the health issue, with labor issues and with the pension issue,” said Segovia.

“But once the Government and the criteria of the reforms were established, the sectors that traditionally manage the sectors of economic power, that manage those sectors of social rights have opposed in a very powerful way through the media, through the unions, the associations, the parliamentarians that have been financed by those unions, to the advancement of the reform”, he added.

In this second legislative year, the outlook for the passage of these three social reforms is uncertain.

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Internal problems in the Historical Pact, the rupture of the broad front of the Government due to different scandals will force the current administration to make a greater effort to achieve the necessary votes in Congress to pass them into law.

Another important point to move forward the Health, Pension and Labor reforms will be the social mobilization in the streets and the will of the majority of Colombians who elected the progressive Government of Gustavo Petro precisely to advance the great social transformations never executed.

Once again, the unions, the traditional parties, the media and the lobbyists of the private health operators such as the EPS, Health Care Providers Companies, and the Private Pension Funds managed by the owners of the banks in Colombia will be in charge of preventing the reforms from succeeding and being sanctioned by the Executive.

Related Topics:Colombian Congress President Petro's reforms

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