The political and social consensus that apparently emerged as a result of last week’s events did not last long. Disagreements arose over the proposal to increase the value added tax by three percentage points, which, according to the constitutional provision, requires the consent of the Assembly. No party, except the government, is ready to share the political cost of that decision. But these same groups should take into account that the growing opposition has a political cost. On the one hand, they will remain an obstacle to collecting the funds needed to partially overcome the fiscal deficit, and they could even be accused of helping the drug trade. On the other hand, denying that increase will also harm the Government that will be elected in a year and that each of them intends to be their own. Finally, it is most likely that the increase will be granted, but only for a limited time, as if the national economy can recover in the short term and the scourge of drug trafficking has a shelf life.

As soon as possible, now

In reality, the debate has a much wider economic, social and political dimension that goes beyond the issue of collection. First, it is surprising that the Government reduced its proposal to this issue only, and the need for funding should have led it to cover other issues. In a situation like the current one, it is not about betting on measures that require long periods – especially in a society occupied by corruption – such as the abolition of tax evasion, or that are unconstitutional, such as the annulment of what was approved in the Yasuní consultations. On the contrary, targeting the fuel subsidy is within reach of signing, it does not need to go through the Assembly and the results would be immediate. He wouldn’t even have to deal with Iza’s outbreak, since he was prevented from acting as usual due to the validity of the state of emergency and internal conflict classification. Obviously, this would have a political cost, but it would be offset in the very short term by the positive economic impact it would produce.

The storm will pass

Second, although the poverty of the arguments of the legislative groups should not attract attention, it is surprising that they are unable to understand the moment the country is experiencing. They did not realize that last week’s events marked a break in the drug trafficking phenomenon. This stopped being a problem of gangs fighting for space and showed the brutal presence of a consolidated actor who is in conflict with the State (not only the Government). Nor did they understand that the weakness of the Government affects the entire country and therefore requires a mature attitude of other actors. In short, they were not aware of their own role in defining the solution and, as has been the practice many times before, they opted for insufficient and ineffective proposals.

These events, exacerbated by the murder of the prosecutor César Suárez, fuel the pessimism that is flooding society. It is better not to think about what will happen when the state of emergency ends. (OR)