The bill promoted by Colorado Senator Germán Coutinho to suspend for one time the ban on the sale of alcoholic beverages that must govern in the previous and during the elections of the Social Security Bank (BPS), on the weekend of November 27, will be treated as “serious and urgent” in the Senate this Tuesday, at the request of the ruling party.
The ban is in force, according to current law, from 24 hours before the closing of the polling stations. That is, from 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, November 27, the same day of the final of the Copa Libertadores between Flamengo and Palmeiras to be played at the Centenario Stadium.
In the bill, the senator states that due to the sports show thousands of tourists will enter the country and that the ban would be applied in the development of a celebration that “places Uruguay at the center of world soccer attention”, so it appeals to “the responsibility that must be preserved” on the part of “society in the face of a new electoral commitment.” For this reason, the article included in the project indicates that the prohibition of sale of alcoholic beverages is exempted for the only time.
Coutinho explained to The Observer that, in the last hours, the issue was in the hands of Vice President Beatriz Argimón, who spoke with legislators and concluded that the support of the coalition will be sufficient to modify the law. However, the ruling party required the approval of the Wide Front so that the proposal is considered urgently, a parliamentary treatment that requires two-thirds of the votes.
“We ask you to have the parliamentary gesture to enable the grave and urgent for tomorrow, so that we can vote and that the project comes out with a simple majority”said the Colorado senator.
Prior to the meeting of the Frente Amplio bench, legislator Óscar Andrade conveyed to the coalition that they held divided positions in the opposition. “At the Front they were a bit divided and Argimón asked them to enable us (the motion) to be treated as serious and urgent “, Coutinho expressed.
The ruling party hoped that the opposition bench would have the “parliamentary gesture” so that the matter would reach the Senate on Tuesday and on Wednesday it would go to Deputies. This is how the senator explained it: “Argimón already spoke with (Deputy Alfredo) Fratti so that on Wednesday he will be in the Deputies, after the vote is sent he will send it and on Thursday it will be law. Everything indicates that it will come out this week.”
“The Front was proposing, and it seems reasonable to me, that alcohol should not be sold in the voting places where there is a canteen,” he added.
The position of the Broad Front was confirmed in the middle of the afternoon, when the bench closed the analysis of the subject in its usual meeting on Mondays. Legislators defined incorporating some modifications to the project, how to extend the norm at the national level for other elections and propose a second article referring to maintaining the prohibition of the sale of alcoholic beverages in polling places where there are canteens.
“We are going to promote some change to the initiative, as in sports clubs. (…) We think it is a bad sign to vote for a case in itself; we would have to look for a slightly more general way out in a norm that dates back to 1925, “the coordinator told VTV Noticias. Andrade.
The project “will be made up of two articles; the second on that alcoholic beverages will not be able to be sold at the polling stations,” Coutinho explained.
