The Liberal Party faces a political crossroads that looks set to be difficult to resolve. Despite being part of the government coalition in Congress, its director, César Gaviria, has made serious objections to the health reform proposal and asked the liberal congressmen not to blindly support the reformist plans of President Gustavo Petro .
In this regard, the representative to the Chamber, Juan Carlos Losada, assured EL COLOMBIANO that it is a bid for power that Gaviria and Petro maintain, and branded as illegal the fact that the Liberal has postponed its National Convention to avoid fair changes. in an election year.
Losada also warned that he will demand the health reform if it is not processed as a statutory law, and questioned the closeness that Petro has had with the controversial former liberal senator Julián Bedoya, who seeks to stay with the Governor of Antioquia.
In addition, he assured that his legislative act that regularizes cannabis for adult use will face two political challenges in Congress: the priority that the National Government defines in its agenda and the solidity of the battered government coalition in the Capitol.
There is a feeling of division in the Liberal Party, what is your reading of that situation?
“We are in a very bad moment because the congressmen themselves are asking President César Gaviria for the party to continue illegally. This has to be a source of shame for our party. That is to say, that the very congressmen who are public officials, who swore to defend the constitution and the law, promote the illegality in which the party is today is because the true liberal values within our community have already been lost, which they must be, as a first measure, respect for the law and the Constitution”.
Is this illegality the product of the postponement of the National Liberal Convention?
“Yeah. We should have held the Convention last year and I don’t know why the president decided not to hold it and although he was on his way to hold it in May of this year, suddenly through a letter signed by congressman César Gaviria he found the perfect reason to postpone the Convention and assume the right to give the guarantees for 2023, which is ultimately what this matter is about. They prefer to pay the fine for keeping the possibility of giving the guarantees”.
And how do you think this internal division is reflected in the relationship with the Government?
“This is reflected in the disquisitions that there are on the different issues raised by the Casa de Nariño, where there are progressive sectors that support the Government of Gustavo Petro with criticism, a constructive spirit, and without providing blind support. But there is another sector that is practically in a similar opposition to what the Democratic Center can do to the Government. With President Gaviria at the head, we are divided, that is evident, and it seems that we do not have a clear ideological north”.
Is the lack of ideological direction due to the permanent postponement of the Convention?
“Of course, because in the absence of a Convention, there is no party programmatic Congress either, which is always held prior to the Convention and which traces the path of liberal thought for the following years. We are going to reach headless elections with a clear line of what our position is with respect to different issues because that division that the party is experiencing today prevents it ”.
This means that it will be a challenge to get the party to agree on the Petro reforms…
“We have a very ambiguous relationship with Palacio. There is a sector that wants to support it, there is another that does not, and there is another that wants to support some reforms and not others. In this context, it will be very difficult to agree on what the relationship with the government will be like. In addition to that, the Government has proposed a direct relationship with the bench without going through the Community Directorate and President Gaviria’s decision not to hold the Convention also goes through that pulse of power with the Casa de Nariño when saying: if I I have the power of guarantees, the one who is going to rule in this party is me and I will not allow the Government to take the bench by its side, but it will have to go through the Directorate ”.
In Antioquia they say that the controversial ex-senator Julián Bedoya is the liberal closest to Petro, does that bother you?
“I am one of the liberals who most vehemently supported Petro in the second round, but I have questioned multiple times that he says that the ways of doing politics must be changed and that his first ally in the Liberal Party is Bedoya. I also did not agree that Petro had sent us reasons through Bedoya’s team, such as the presentation of the resume of the Minister of Housing. Bedoya is an opportunist, all his life he had precisely represented the most reactionary and right-wing sector of the Liberal Party, and suddenly he ended up being an ally of Petro ”.
The health reform bothered César Gaviria, how is this issue handled in the party?
“Law 100 is a legacy that President Gaviria came out to defend, that liberal model is in need of some reforms, no one can deny that, the issue is whether we end the entire system or not. Gaviria is openly against it, like the vast majority of liberals. The Government lasted a month and a half making announcements without texts, it is their responsibility to have put the debate in such ethereal terms, but now we have to meet to analyze that text”.
And what is your position regarding the debate on whether it is an ordinary law or a statutory law?
“When Law 100 was issued, it was not a statutory law, at that time health was not considered a right, that was a development that the Constitutional Court later made. After the Court did so, any reform made to Law 100 should be of statutory rank because it is regulating a Colombian right. That is why I believe and I invite the Government not to make the mistake of taking health care to the Seventh Commission, which is the one in charge of health issues, but should take it to the First Commission, which is the one in charge of the reforms statutory”.
And what is your position regarding the debate on whether it is an ordinary law or a statutory law?
“If it is not processed as a statutory law, what will rain are hundreds of demands, including mine, to that health reform once it is approved because it would be violating a procedure that is clear both in Law 5 and in both rulings of the Court”
Let’s talk about your legislative act to regularize cannabis for adult use, do you see a political environment for it to advance in the second round in Congress?
“We are at a political moment in which the project has managed to have its first four debates, it is missing four debates that are going to be very hard because in the second round the legislative acts require qualified majorities. That is to say that if we do not reach 95 votes in the Chamber, the project is immediately sunk. Clearly it will not be an easy round of discussion and in reality it will depend politically on how much the government is going to invest in this project and how much the coalition is able to keep in Congress until the end of June”.
Do you think these are difficult challenges to meet?
“Both things are going to have complications because the Government is now going to present the National Development Plan, health reform, the penitentiary system, and pensions, and the legislative acts that came from the previous period are coming, such as the political reform and the creation of the agrarian jurisdiction, without mentioning many other reforms that the Government has announced that it will present in March.
The first challenge will be the priority given to the issue of cannabis within this complex agenda. The second is to see that the National Government starts the second half of the legislature with many more political difficulties than it started in July 2022 and with elections this year. Then we will have to see what will happen with the Conservative Party, with the U Party, with the retarded sector of the Liberal Party and with the critical sector of the Green Alliance. If the Government fails to leverage all these forces to achieve qualified majorities in legislative acts, this project could be in jeopardy”.
This week you held a public hearing in Medellín related to the issue of cannabis, what was your objective?
“We had held a couple of public hearings on the legislative act that regulates cannabis for adult use, but we had not been to Medellín. This is a topic that is of interest to Antioquians. Part of what this project seeks is the guarantee of a constitutional right that was enshrined in a ruling by teacher Carlos Gaviria Díaz in 1993, which guarantees the free development of personality. How can one not hold a public hearing on this matter in the second largest city in the country. Another reason to hold the hearing in Medellín is because there is a whole cannabis sector in the city and this city is inescapable in industrial terms and the nascent cannabis industries have a very important headquarters here”.
And what is the reading of the current reality of this cannabis industry?
“One of the reasons why the nascent cannabis industries are so interested in our legislative act is because somehow the expectations that existed with medical cannabis did not end up being fulfilled and today the companies that dedicated themselves to medical cannabis are in the red. or just reaching the break-even point. So, it has been a very arduous struggle to move forward with the issue of medical cannabis and precisely these companies see in cannabis for adult use the possibility of getting out of the red numbers that they have been in in recent years”.