The group of mayors of the government coalition presented days a document with the reasons that, in their opinion, justifies the request for impeachment for the mayor of Montevideo, Carolina Cosse. The main claim made by the councilors is the absence of the mayor to the session of last October 7.
“This was a call. [a sala] for the request for requests for reports and their corresponding unanswered reiterations, ”says the document. Citing some regulations established in the Constitution, they argue that Cosse’s “obligation” was “to attend personally.”
“The constitutional text is clear, if the reason for the call to court is for not responding in time to requests for reports, the mayor cannot be represented,” they add.
When Cosse decides not to go, the mayors assure that he violated the Constitution and that is why “the cause to initiate the political trial materializes.” These types of events, say the opposition mayors, are not isolated, but have been a constant within the administration of the Front. “This fracture in the balance of the counterweights of the powers affects democracy”, adds the document.
After the political trial was voted, Cosse assured that the commune had answered most of the requests for reports. However, in the document presented they assure that this is not the case and add a series of examples where they consider that the answers were inconclusive and inaccurate.
The contrary view of the constitutionalists
The constitutionalist Ruben Correa Freitas explained how the process initiated in the Departmental Board is now continuing. It is a “political” decision, the expert pointed out.
Constitutional law expert Ruben Correa Freitas explained to Underlined what the political trial of Montevideo mayor Carolina Cosse consists of and how the process continues in the Chamber of Senators. The request to start a political trial was approved in the Departmental Board of Montevideo with the votes of the opposition mayors: whites and reds.
The request for impeachment now goes to the Senate Constitution Commission, which must analyze whether or not such an extreme applies to Mayor Cosse, Correa Freitas said. To do this, he must analyze the basis presented by the opposition councilors as a justification for impeachment. In addition, they must summon Mayor Cosse to make her discharge, added the constitutional expert.
With all the elements analyzed, the Commission can decide that there is no merit for a political trial, or proceed with it and take the case to the Senate. The ultimate goal of the political trial, in this case, is the dismissal of Cosse as mayor of Montevideo. To reach that extreme, the vote in favor of two thirds of the components of the Senate is required, a figure that the government coalition (opposition in Montevideo) does not have on its own. Correa Freitas explained that in this case the mayors of the Departmental Board act as prosecutors, while the senators would become the judges of this political trial. Precisely, Corre Freitas stressed that political decisions are adopted at all times, both in the initial complaint and in the resolution adopted by the Senate.
Cosse’s defense
Cosse described the measure as “nonsense”, “when this sector of the National Party makes these proposals, in the voting itself they ask for the justification and they say: I will bring you the justification later”, said the mayor.
“In fact (the rationale) they wrote it a couple of days ago. It has no legal or political basis. First they voted and then they founded. It is all without foot or head, ”he added. In addition, the hierarch considered that it is “a political action to cover up, to distract from other serious things that are happening in the country.” “It is quite obvious that it is about setting up an issue that does not exist on the agenda, because this is a non-issue, a non-problem, to cover up other problems,” he said.
Cosse blamed this maneuver especially on the Herrerismo sector within the nationalist caucus of mayors and suggested the participation of important leaders of this sector in the action of the mayors. For the mayor, in the more than three hours of intermediate rooms used by the opposition mayors in the Board, “they must have talked to many people.” “Let’s assume that I think of everything you say, that I think of everything you do and everything you don’t do, and someone wants to remove you. Do you think they wouldn’t consult me?” Cosse suggested. On the other hand, the communal chief considered that the impeachment maneuver “is also part of a behavior of not letting us work.” In that sense, she mentioned the history of the loan from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), which, after arduous negotiations with the opposition mayors, they finally voted against. To this she added the projects with short-term credits from the Mayor’s Office, which were approved by the Board despite the fact that they were not supported by the opposition mayors’ bench.
Several nationalists against
One of the members of the government who spoke publicly on this issue was Defense Minister Javier García. The referent of Espacio 40 acknowledged that a mayor on his list consulted him last Friday about the steps they were taking in the Board, and he replied that he believed that he had to “stop a bit to analyze the decision legally and politically in greater depth. ”. “As you can see, I failed with total success,” said the Secretary of State yesterday at a press conference.
Others go further and described the entire situation as “outrageous” and “madness”, committed by “councilmen who cut themselves” taking the party by “surprise”, and who incurred a flagrant “mistake of political appreciation”.
In this last sense, another nationalist leader assured that the political effect that ends up being produced is in the form of a “boomerang”: instead of attacking the mayor and favoring the departmental opposition, the exact opposite ended up happening: “They gave life to Cosse and the Broad Front. On the other hand, it is understood that this is not a good precedent for the interests of the party either, since the argument that not responding to requests for a report could lead to impeachment -the whites have 15 communal chiefs- is another element that can also turn against
“We all know that the political trial is not going to prosper because there is no majority for it to prosper, but what is evident and has taken due public status is the lack of empathy of the mayor with the Departmental Board”, summed up the senator white Gustavo Penadés yesterday in statements to the media. Regarding the latter, the president of the nationalist Departmental Commission of Montevideo, Laura Raffo, also expressed herself yesterday, who remarked that the path followed by the councilors was due to an “accumulated wear” in her relationship with Cosse.
However, beyond these opinions, there are whites who are also upset with the role played by Senator Jorge Gandini, leader of Por la Patria, and Deputy Álvaro Viviano -also from this sector- as promoters of the trial against the community leader . Asked about this, Gandini limited himself to supporting the councilors’ decision: “Their reaction is natural, within the framework of the autonomy of a bench that feels despised by the mayor, who does not like being controlled,” he said. to the newspaper El País the senator, who added: “The FA has blocked (in the Board) all the investigative commissions, the mayor never appeared when she was summoned, she does not answer the reports in a timely manner as dictated by the Constitution, and she had to have attended when they called her to the room” last Friday.
Cabildantes and colorados in the same line
In the Colorado Party and in Cabildo Abierto -the other two parties of the government coalition that have representation in the Senate- there were also demonstrations in this regard in recent hours, and in all cases they aimed to underline that the political trial against the mayor Carolina Cosse is either an “exaggeration” or a disproportionate response. The leader of Cabildo Abierto, Guido Manini Ríos, said that he understands that “there are much more important issues” than this discussion, which he classified as “sterile.” Along these lines, he maintained that “as he has done so far”, he is not willing to lend himself “to any political or media circus”. Something similar was said by Senator Guillermo Domenech, a lobbyist, for whom having to speak out on this issue is already “overdoing the fireworks of the media circus.”
“I think people are getting tired of this stuff,” he said. The voices that were expressed in the Colorado Party were along the same lines. The coordinator of the Citizens sector, the Minister of the Environment, Adrián Peña, affirmed that in addition to being “a little disproportionate”, what the councilors did does not go hand in hand with the general will of the political system to “lower the ball” in the intensity of the public debate. “If we set the precedent that any violation of the Constitution justifies impeachment, we are going to have a barrage of lawsuits that, although they cannot advance, will make the climate worse,” said the minister.
Red sources indicated that, after a first analysis of what was resolved by the councilors, the arguments to justify this resource are considered “weak.” For this reason, in part, the lawyer Andrés Ojeda – the first substitute for Laura Raffo’s candidacy for mayor in 2020 – also declared yesterday to Radio Universal that in his opinion “the political trial is an exaggeration.”
Basing ourselves on the opinion of specialized jurists, even on the look of several government officials at the national level, that is, on the sidewalk in front of Cosse, this request is totally exaggerated, absurd, as someone said, they wanted to extinguish an anthill with an atomic bomb , clearly, and using legal terms, the request seems to be answered with a “no place.”
Juan Prandi
