In another of the episodes of the health reform, on Friday, April 14, President Gustavo Petro requested the resignation of six deputy ministers of the Liberal, Conservative and ‘la U’ parties, the groups that have most criticized his project.
(See: ABC of the alternative project of reform to the health of the liberals).
Analysts say that this decision is a bet by Petro to put pressure on the coalition, since “has yielded up to an acceptable limit within its conception of health reform and continuing to yield may totally deform it”, as he affirms Luis Fernando Trejos, professor at the Universidad del Norte.
At this point it must be remembered that the same Minister of Health and Social Protection, Carolina Corcho, has been warning that “if the essentials were eliminated, the Government would withdraw the project”.
(See: Reasons why ‘The Economist’ criticized Petro’s ‘total peace’).
But, although it is true that this move can give the President the desired effects and achieve pressure to have the support that his health reform articles lack –which is the one that is most in danger–, the bet could go wrong and put at risk his other structural projects that will be debated in Congress: pension and work.
If the coalition does not resist the pressure and breaks up, “it would be a paralysis of legislative management”, affirms the professor from the Universidad del Norte.
For Mauricio Jaramillo Jassir, researcher at the Universidad del Rosario, a rupture of the coalition “causes the Executive to lose governability and room for maneuver”.
So, it would be up to him to renegotiate, somehow, the texts of the reform. This because “For the Government, it is essential to advance in health, pension and work: they are the backbone of its social program”. Which, to a certain extent, is what many voted for and what the president is trying to defend.
(See: Pension reform: experts believe that it would threaten national savings).
In fact, Trejos considers that what is going to happen is that “support is renegotiated in Congress, which will surely become more expensive after this tension”.
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