Executive achieves legislative ‘chiripazos’ before an atomized and weak Assembly

The Executive achieved some legislative and oversight “chiripazos” before a marked weakness of the National Assembly, which was characterized by disorder, legal loopholes and a lack of consensus at the time of processing the tax reform and investigating the President of the Republic , Guillermo Lasso, for the so-called Pandora Papers.

That look is held by several assembly members, who from this December 16 will take advantage of a legislative vacancy of fifteen days for Christmas and New Year holidays. His return is scheduled for January 3, 2022.

National Assembly will go into legislative recess from December 16 to 30

The process of the tax reform, the budgetary proforma and the investigation of the Pandora Papers, where the head of State was appointed, exposed the Legislative and the Executive on the lack of political operators and consensus between the political forces of the Assembly; and there is also the doubt about a possible last-minute agreement between the Government and the Correísmo.

Juan Cristóbal Lloret, from the Unión por la Esperanza (UNES) bench, considers that the Executive was quite assertive in terms of obtaining final results regarding the processing of the economic law and the inspection of the Pandora Papers, since it managed to divide Pachakutik and, on the other hand, it located the Democratic Left as the “hinge” that allowed it to shield itself.

This legislator is not unaware that his bench (UNES) played an important role in what happened with the tax reform, in the sense of abstaining in the vote on the archive of the urgent project. Although he insists that it is unconstitutional that the law has been sent to the Official Registry, and therefore, that political sector announced a lawsuit of unconstitutionality.

He insists that there was no pact between the Government and the Correísmo to facilitate the validity of Guillermo Lasso’s main economic reform, which constitutes an oxygen for the regime, because it will take some time to process a reform or repeal of the law.

That although now – Lloret adds – the Executive obtained triumphs at the legislative level with the tax reform, what it does is accumulate in a pressure cooker a trigger of social order that will surely be evidenced next year, because a tax burden is accumulating on the middle class and the working class; while the Government is silent on the targeting of fuel prices.

From the independent sector, César Rohón (formerly PSC) considers that the Assembly is lost in its own labyrinth, that what happened with the Pandora Papers report resembles a circus, because the legislative procedures are not respected and that facilitates all the disorder that is lived. In the midst of that and the disorders due to the legal loopholes in the Organic Law of the Legislative Function, a tax reform was approved with “legumes” that constitutes a “fluke” by the Government.

And regarding the investigation of the Pandora Papers, the Assembly never agreed with a report that was forged, directed and that wanted to generate convulsion in the country from the Correismo; And all this also generated disorder, mistrust and little acceptance of the citizenship to the task that the Legislative Assembly fulfilled in this matter.

It regrets that the Assembly has implemented the “political hinge game”, which sometimes yes and sometimes no, where the Executive takes advantage of these weaknesses, because in the face of the budget pro forma, the Legislature with 96 votes was ratified in the observations , but the Executive announces that it will execute what it initially sent to Parliament, because there is a legal vacuum that is used for its purpose. “The Government takes advantage of the weaknesses of the Assembly and the legal loopholes to be able to reap the blows,” he stresses.

The Democratic Left does not constitute a “hinge” in front of the Executive, clarifies the legislator Marlon Cadena. That its political organization has maintained the thesis of strengthening the institutionality, dialogue and consensus; but that if the Government does not amend and believes that via the Ministry of Law it can govern, the ID will have to stop that type of attitude and not play the game, he adds.

He considers that obtaining a tax reform in precisely this way is a Pyrrhic triumph of the Executive, which will take its toll on him in the future, since it constitutes a breath of oxygen that helps him float in this turbulent scenario.

What President Guillermo Lasso must do, says Cadena, is to consolidate that support he has had from the Assembly regarding an issue like Pandora Papers, where a political sector had clear destabilization intentions.

With what happened in the tax reform, it is evident that the political forces privilege their own agenda, since the Government was able to pass its projects and the Assembly was expectant. Faced with all this, the legislator Cadena points out that the ID must assume an increasingly firm position.

Virgilio Saquicela, first vice president of Parliament and member of the ruling National Agreement bench, indicates that the Executive must amend its announcement that it will not accept the observations made by the Legislative in the budget proforma, no matter how much legal vacuum that exists, and also should not forget that the Assembly has the ability to monitor a breach by the Ministry of Finance.

Regarding the issue of the Pandora Papers, Saquicela comments that it was inappropriate for everything to remain in an exhortation, when the minority report had to be known due to the lack of votes to approve a majority report that sought the removal of the president.

He agrees that before the country a useless Assembly is seen in the face of important issues, such as the tax reform, because in the end there is a project in force that hits the middle class, where legislators were not able to agree to apply changes to lessen their impact.

The problem lies – he adds – in that there is no capacity in the block leaders to resolve the issues before they are defined in plenary session. Well, there have been majorities beyond mobileWhen voting by delegates to integrate the commissions that will designate the authorities of control bodies, there it is possible to reach agreements; But when there are important issues, such as the tax reform and the Pandora issue, the Assembly shows weakness in reaching consensus.

The Executive has to look for these consensuses, look for basic lines of agreements with the Legislative, which are legitimate in a democracy, says Saquicela, but the presentations of the benches have to be weighed and the calculations for the next elections have to be taken away. (I)