The partners of Together for Change maintain their differences regarding the parliamentary strategy that they will adopt regarding the agreement with the IMF, since the PRO continues to put conditions to vote, while that same force did not obtain support from its partners on the issue of transportation subsidies in the city of Buenos Airesdivergences that were exposed in the last hours after the meeting of the national space table.
The extensive meeting last Thursday of the political leadership of the opposition coalition tried to display a single message In relation to the understanding with the IMF: Together for Change will not put stones in the way, although he insists on seeing the fine print of the agreement before voting.
However, in the opposition space the differences between two visions persist: the one that insists on giving quorum to understanding, embodied by the UCR and the civic coalitionand the one that puts conditions to vote, behind which the banner is flagged PRO.
Despite the declarations after the summit, within the opposition coalition there are two marked positions: radicalism, today led by Gerardo Morales from Jujuy, and Elisa Carrió’s Civic Coalition, think they have to give quorum to debate in Congress.
The PRO puts more objections and says that you cannot vote for what is not known. In fact, these differences were so evident that during the week there was a specific meeting of the macrista bloc to debate its position.
In this framework, they listened to the party’s economists and insisted on their position that they cannot endorse it without knowing the fine print of the understanding.
The internal divergences had already been expressed when Governor Morales asked not to forget that it was the Mauricio Macri administration that took on the extraordinary debt of 44 billion dollars with the IMFwhose return is now trying to renegotiate the management of Alberto Fernández.
Despite the differences, Together for Change managed to agree on one point, and that is that they will question any proposal that implies an eventual increase in taxes.
On Saturday, in an interview with Radio Diez, President Alberto Fernández considered that it would be “an act of good sense“of the opposition if they support in Congress the understanding reached with the international organization.
In the opposition meeting on Thursday, the discussion raised between the Government of the City of Buenos Aires and the national Government regarding the level of subsidies that the City receives for public transport also flew over, but the head of the Buenos Aires government, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta , did not get the support he wanted from his coalition partners.
It is that Rodríguez Larreta sought support from his partners of Together for Change in the face of the controversy that he has been maintaining with the Nation, which is analyzing transferring to the City the management of subsidies and transport rates for groups that circulate through the Federal Capital, a total of 32 public passenger transport lines.
As Télam learned, when the issue was raised at the JXC summit, several references from the interior of the country They told the head of the Buenos Aires government that the issue was not going to be supportedconsidering that the ticket bus in Capital Federal costs 18 pesos and the average of the interior is 50 pesos.
One of the interlocutors told Rodríguez Larreta that the transport subsidy scheme is unfairwhich historically benefited the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires (AMBA) and that it was necessary to have a look more federal of the question.
On Saturday, the governor of Jujuy and head of radicalism, Gerardo Morales, said it publicly – in statements to radio Miter: “They wanted to raise it at the Together for Change table. I asked them not to bring up that issue because we have differences. We are part of the Great North. In the AMBA they receive the subsidies that we do not receive in the interior. It is very unfair”.
Beyond the conjunctural issues of the agreement with the IMF and transport subsidies, in the five-hour debate of the opposition leaders also it was agreed to expand the legislative agenda, with specific projects on highly topical issues.
In this context, Together for Change will put the issue of drug trafficking in the center of their attention, they will hold a seminar with experts and present a emergency law on the matter, after more than 20 people died in the suburbs a few days ago by consuming adulterated drugs.
Likewise, they will establish a position on the back to school conditions and they will insist that educational activity be resumed normally in a context of a reduction in coronavirus cases throughout the country.
The decision of the national government to give priority to the issue, embodied in the “Safe Classrooms” plan that the Casa Rosada presented this week and that gives the guidelines for a return to careful presence, the opposition front seeks to give signals to prevent the ruling party from “snatching” a flag that it considers its own.
Another of the issues confirmed as key in the meeting is the question of the Council of the Judiciary.
In Congress there are several dance initiatives to modify the body for the selection and removal of judgesafter the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation ordered a new law to organize the Council, questioning its current composition.
Together for Change promotes in this sense a unified project between its different forces -PRO, Civic Coalition, UCR and Republican Peronism- and a team of jurists is already drafting it.
The opposition will also promote the issue of fight against gender violence and will come out to question with greater intensity the direction of the national government’s foreign policy, after the recent presidential trip to China and Russia.
All these initiatives will be reflected in a legislative agenda that the opposition will present in the coming days, before ordinary sessions begin in Parliament on March 1.
Internally, Together for Change also made progress in the constitution of the so-called federal tablean instance generated after the complaints that rained down from the interior of the country, where leaders who were important in winning the legislative elections complained that the conduction was very centralist and Buenos Aires.
