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The Senate ended four months of paralysis yesterday and returned to session but it all ended in scandal: Together for Change and the brand new block of Federal Unity withdrew from the premises when denouncing what they considered a “violation of the regulations” by the ruling party in the definition of the proposed agenda and, in this way, brought the session to a halt amid shouting and reproaches. The frustrated debate revealed the new balance of forces in the body and thus the opposition pointed out to Cristina Kirchner that, after the breakdown of the Frente de Todos bloc last December, she no longer dominates the functioning of the upper house.
The Vice President was not present the day before and the eventful debate was initiated by the provisional president of the body, Claudia Abdalá de Ledesma, from Santiago. A quorum was achieved with 70 senators present, but in the preview there was a lot of mistrust because on Wednesday there had been no agreement at the parliamentary work meeting to set the agenda for the day before.
It was thus that the debate began with speeches with a political tone, such as that of the official José Mayans, who quickly crossed paths with his JxC peers over the definition of the issues. While the ruling party wanted to deal with the prohibition of alcohol consumption while driving, the facilitation of the renewal of the disability certificate or the regulations against child abuse, in the opposition they agreed on the treatment of this last law but together with the vote on the specifications to cover courts in Santa Fe and Córdoba and the reduction of taxes on energy rates in the interior.
Everything ended up getting out of hand at 1:15 p.m. when the provisional president of the Senate ruled that for a change in the session’s agenda, two-thirds of the votes had to be gathered, something impossible for the opposition arc to comply with.
It was so that the head of the JxC interblock, Alfredo Cornejo, began to vehemently claim the head of the body and later denounced that her voice “was soundproofed” from the official transmission. The session was gaining in tension and fell definitively when the senators of this interblock and of Federal Unity (UF) decided to leave the venue as a way of expressing their rejection of the government’s attempt to force a vote that demanded more votes to enable the agreed agenda by the opposition “new majority” in the Upper House.
Shouts such as “Alcohol Cero” began to be heard from the boxes, from families who demanded that the session not be interrupted and that this project could be debated. It is that in the stands there were relatives of victims of traffic accidents and the Mothers of Pain association, such as Viviam Perrone, who was seen on several occasions in Casa Rosada when Cambiemos governed. Also present were the grandparents of little Lucìo Dupuy, murdered by his mother and his girlfriend in La Pampa, who tried to convince senators from that JxC province to resume the session.
For an hour the members of the ruling party and allies such as Alberto Werelticneck from Rio Negro continued to hold sessions “in the minority” with strong criticism of their peers from the opposition benches. There was, of course, no number to vote on any of the dance projects.
Faced with the accusations “for insensitivity” that poured from the FdT, the opposition justified that the rest of the agenda could be dealt with on April 13.
In dialogue with this newspaper, Cornejo argued that Ledesma “violated” the regulations by demanding an aggravated majority to change the agenda when “motions of order” are approved with a simple majority. “We had a majority to deal with an agenda, gathering 38 votes out of 70. For the next session after Easter, we are going to make the 38 senators sign the request for a special session,” he anticipated as a way to avoid an eventual blockade of the FdT.
However, the candidate for governor from Mendoza interpreted the “maneuver” of the ruling party as a way of masking the loss “of the majority, at least for these issues” in the Senate, after suffering the flight last December of four legislators who joined the Alejandra Viga from Córdoba to form the Federal Union. “That is why today (yesterday) they asked for two thirds of the votes because they lost” the vote, he claimed and argued that “the landscape of the Senate has changed and they no longer have control over the majority” as was the case in previous years.
In the ruling party they argued that with their attitude the opposition arch wanted to expose “the weakened image of Cristina” but argued that the lack of will to debate issues of social interest “is going to turn against them.”
Mayans from Formosa, delegate of the Vice in the logistical organization of the body, announced that they will try to meet again on Thursday, April 13. It seems difficult that with the proximity of the electoral campaign and the disagreements exposed during the day before, there is room to negotiate a joint special session in such a short time.
The camporista Anabel Sagasti assured that “we are going to continue insisting, trying to get the leaders of JxC to lower their arrogance. They made a big role but this will have consequences ”
In the corridors of the upper house, members of the opposition benches argued that the FdT tried to debate “the issues that it wanted” that were included “at the last moment” in the aforementioned parliamentary work meeting and instead had agreed on a common agenda “except for a single issue”, as was the regulation of electricity rates in the interior.
