December 12, 2024, 4:00 AM
December 12, 2024, 4:00 AM
Parliamentarians, both senators and deputies, are preparing for their end-of-year vacations, without debating two transcendental bills: bill 003/2024-2025 of the General State Budget (PGE) 2025 and the bill for the redistribution of seats that the Electoral Body is waiting for to call general elections in 2025.
The president of the Legislative Assembly, David Choquehuanca, called yesterday to the last session of both chambers that will be held this Thursday, December 12. The only issue he put on the agenda is the “appointment of the Assembly commission for the end-of-year recess.”
For the opposition in Parliament, the authority’s call confirms the “strategy” of archism, of delaying the treatment of the financial law as much as possible so that the norm is automatically approved Jan. 1, without the changes and adjustments the Planning Commission made last week.
Meanwhile, the ruling party in the Assembly minimized the Choquehuanca call, denying that the intention was to approve the norm without the approval of the Legislature and assured that Deputies will call a session until Monday, December 16 and if necessary, they will meet by time and subject to discuss the PGE 2025.
Vacation without approval
According to the call issued by the Vice Presidency, this Thursday afternoon Choquehuanca will try once again to direct a legislative session to set the parliamentary recess and form an end-of-year commission andbecause the only item on the agenda is the “appointment of the Assembly commission for the end-of-year recess.”
A year ago, Choquehuanca called a session to approve the 2023 end-of-year recess, but the majority of senators and deputies refused to take those vacations and a commission was not formed either. They demanded that the PGE 2024 be treated and approved with modifications, but this was not the case.
Currently, the parliamentary opposition composed of evistas, CC and Creo, assures that arcismo uses the same strategy.
The deputy of the Citizen Community (CC), Enrique Urquidi, indicated that on Monday, December 9, the general secretary of the Vice Presidency, through a note, asked CC toUntil Friday the 13th, submit the list of parliamentarians who will be part of the legislative commission for the end of the year recess.
However, yesterday, Wednesday, Choquehuanca called a session of the Assembly for a day before, that is, for Thursday the 12th to precisely form that recess commission. The event was described by Urquidi as a “masist trap”, given that the Legislature has several pending issues.
“From the Citizen Community we want to say forcefully that we reject this massist trap, and it is a crude trap like they did last year, they want to prevent the Assembly from fulfilling its functions and from debating and let’s consider the General Budget of the Nation 2025, and added to this they also want to prevent us from debating the bill that has to do with the redistribution of seats and that is a fundamental element to guarantee the 2025 elections,” said Urquidi.
The protests for not holding a session were joined by Santa Cruz deputy Jerges Mercado who demanded that Yujra call a session so that the issue of parliamentary seats could also be discussed.
“The first issue that concerns us is that the law for the redistribution of seats has not yet been approved as appropriate, in application of the population and housing census carried out last March. “I want to ask the presidency of the House to act responsibly,” Mercado demanded.
Secure session
The Arcista deputy, Freddy Velásquez, denied that the ruling party is carrying out a strategy to delay the processing of the PGE 2025 and that it automatically comes into force on January 1. He argued that if the opposition’s version were true, the Planning Commission would not have discussed the bill, nor would the Minister of Economy have bothered to go and explain the financial law to the assembly members.
Velásquez assured that even after Choquehuanca calls a recess, the deputies will be called to meet and not only for the PGE 2025, but also to discuss the redistribution of seats.
“Next week we are going to meet, the president of the Chamber of Deputies will call In order to debate this issue (…) we can hold (session) for time and subject until it is approved. Even if there is a recess, we are going to continue with the work to give certainty to the population,” said the legislator.
From the bench in Deputies, the legislators protested because Yujra to date has not called a session to discuss the PGE, they assured that this responds to a strategy of archism to prevent the treatment and analysis of some “contraband” items that deserve treatment apart.
“There are articles like article 13 that seek to put the people in debt with 13 billion dollars and we do not know where they are going to be borrowed from. These credits must have a specific law. The same as article 19, 14, they are seeking to mortgage the 22 tons of gold that we have to international organizations (…) that is why they do not want to deal with the bill in a plenary session, because they know that we are going to modify the bill,” said deputy Renán Cabezas.
Thus, amidst protests, Choquehuanca will once again try to meet with the senators and deputies to dictate the parliamentary recess and form a commission.
