President Gustavo Petro suffered a strong defeat this Tuesday in the Congress of the Republic, which shows how little control the Government has over the Legislature nine months before the end of his term. The economic commissions of the Senate and the House of Representatives sank the tax reform and left the General Budget of the Nation for 2026 defunded by 16.3 trillion pesos. The bill, which sought to increase consumption taxes on alcoholic beverages and tobacco, tax assets exceeding 2.6 billion pesos and increase the tax burden on companies in the financial and energy sector, among other measures, ran into fierce political opposition.
The majority of the Senate’s fourth commission, the same one that approved Petro’s labor reform a few months ago, voted against the tax reform and definitively shelved it, with 9 votes for no and only 4, the most pro-government, for yes. Several of the senators who supported the president in other initiatives, such as the Afro-Colombian leader Paulino Riascos or the indigenous senator Richard Fuelantala, this time voted against. The three remaining commissions did not vote, because the Congressional regulations establish that this type of reform requires the approval of the four commissions. If one denies it, one is sunk. A few minutes after hearing the news, the president criticized what happened with a strong message on his social networks. “It is nothing more than the development of political hatred above the national interest,” he said in reference to the collapse of his project.
The Minister of the Interior, Armando Benedetti, who did not attend the vote in Congress, also regretted the sinking. “The sunk Financing Law is equal to bonds and high risk and lack of capacity to pay the external debt, equal to more economic crisis. And then the Government’s social policy will be affected by the very high interests of the debt. And all because a sector of Congress votes with its guts.” Senators and representatives related to the Government joined the criticism against the sector that sank the bill. Jorge Hernán Bastidas, speaker of the reform, criticized that his colleagues had approved the budget, but denied the law that sought the resources to comply with it. “Congress cannot pass an underfunded budget and then refuse to deliberate on the resources necessary to cover it.”
In contrast, opposition congressmen celebrated the fall of the project as a great victory against the president. Senator and conservative presidential candidate Efraín Cepeda, a strong critic of the initiative, assured that the file avoids the creation of new taxes for the poorest classes during Christmas. “We sank the Petro Government’s tax reform despite the maneuvers to block the debate. They intended to impose it by force,” he said as he left the premises. Cepeda warned of the risks of the president deciding to implement it by decree, bypassing the Legislative power: “Attention: now they want to open the door to an economic emergency to try to pass the same reform by decree. That would be an abuse of power and a blow to democratic rules. We are not going to allow the Government to finance politicking with the pockets of Colombians.” For now, despite the rumors, the president has not confirmed the declaration of the economic emergency, although his Minister of Finance, Germán Ávila, has said that he does not rule out any tool.
The fall of the tax reform was neither the first nor the last setback that the Government suffered this Tuesday in Congress. Minutes before, the first commission of the Senate refused for the third consecutive time to discuss the project that seeks to save the Ministry of Equality, the president’s banner and which has until July to be created again, since the Constitutional Court found that the initial law that gave it life is unconstitutional, but granted a deadline to the Government to prevent its disappearance. Representative Alirio Uribe, of the ruling Historical Pact, questioned the decision of his colleagues in the Senate not to form a quorum and thus avoid discussion. “Congress is failing the country (…) and there is only one week left until the legislative recess,” he warned.
And shortly after, the Seventh Senate Committee refused to discuss health reform. After several hours in which the opposition delayed the discussion, the president of the legislative cell, the liberal and opposition Miguel Ángel Pinto, decided to adjourn the session without even having started the debate. The decision aroused the rage of Minister Benedetti, who has unsuccessfully bet all his negotiating power on this project, the most important for Petro: “April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December… and the health reform, all those months, has not advanced in the Seventh Commission. The Seventh Commission has sucked the Government, they have despised the sick and they have helped the EPS to get the money.” His Health colleague, Guillermo Alfonso Jaramillo, also criticized the absence of debate. “While you delay, millions of Colombians remain trapped in a system that does not guarantee timely care, nor delivery of medications, nor a strong hospital network, nor decent conditions for health workers. Health is not a political loot nor a business to defend privileges. It is a right,” the minister wrote before beginning the session in Congress.
Added to these three defeats is the fact that agrarian jurisdiction, another of the president’s key projects, has also not advanced in the plenary session of the House of Representatives or the Senate for months. With 90 days to go before the legislative elections, legislators’ priorities are increasingly shifting to electoral tours and meetings, and less to the debates on Capitol Hill. Time is ticking while the Government’s little convincing power in Congress runs out.
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