April 22, 2023, 5:27 PM
April 22, 2023, 5:27 PM
After a quarter intermission of more than 40 minutes, the Chamber of Deputies resumed its session this Saturday afternoon with a new vote to approve or reject the Bill for the Purchase of Gold Destined to Strengthen International Reserves.
The session, initially, was reinstated after 2:30 p.m. with a series of questions to the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Jerges Mercado, who on Friday approved the bill at his large station without a vote in favor of it. the regulations would have obtained an absolute majority.
After that fact and in the midst of a series of questions from his colleagues and even warnings of possible processes, Mercado decided this Saturday that the vote be repeated.
“Since there are some questions and so that this important law for the country is not hindered later with processes that, surely, some will do to harm the country and stability, we decided to repeat the vote immediately, but (with the vote) secrecy accordingly and as it had been defined, respecting democracy and that our deputies are not blackmailed,” he said.
Then, at approximately 4:10 p.m., he declared a 15-minute intermission, although in reality that pause lasted until 4:54 p.m., when the deputies resumed their session and the announced new vote began at 5:20 p.m. after the formation of a scrutiny committee.
This bill is one of the regulations that even the President Luis Arce urged its approval.
On April 11, in a television interview, President Arce assured that it is a strategic issue of national interest because he considers that it is a “good refuge” in the current economic crisis facing the world.
“The law of gold is very important; (…) what is happening in the world is that all the countries are going to take refuge (…) in gold because gold has a particularity: gold is not the liability of anyone”, Arce stated then.
