Petro proposes taking Colombia to a constituent assembly to reform the Constitution

The President of Colombia Gustavo Pedro On Friday, he raised the possibility of leading the country to a process of reforming the Constitution as a way of achieving the social transformations that he promised in his electoral campaign and that Congress did not approve.

“If the institutions we have today Colombia They are not capable of doing justice to the social reforms that the people, through their vote, decreed… so Colombia you have to go to one National Constituent Assembly” he declared Petro in an effusive speech from Cali, in the southwest of the country. “Colombia does not need to kneel. The popular triumph of 2002 is respected.”

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The president’s proposal – the first left-leaning president in the country’s history – generated criticism from various political sectorswho remembered that In his election campaign he promised that he would not reform the Constitution nor would there be any attempt to remain in power longer than the four years permitted by law.

“We ask the president to respect the democratic institutions that he promised to care for and defend, not only in the campaign, but also when he swore the Constitution as president of Colombians,” the opposition party said in a statement. Democratic Center.

The current Constitution, promulgated in 1991, states that, in order to be reformed, Congress must approve a law that guarantees that citizens decide, in a popular vote, whether to convene a Constituent Assembly. with competence, term and composition determined by the same law.

For that, Approximately 12 million people are required to votewhich correspond to a third of the members of the electoral roll.

In his speech, Petro appealed to citizens to demonstrate in the streets and advocate ambitious social reforms who seek to structurally reform the health, work and pension systems, and who in recent days have faced resistance in the Congress. Health reform – the most advanced in the third of four debates – risks being sunk by a shelving proposal that appears to have the majority’s preference.

“The National Constituent Assembly must transform institutions so that they comply with the people with their mandate of peace and justice.”, which is easy to get in Colombia. It is the people who have the say; “This president will go as far as you say,” the president said.

Petro called to take to the streets of Cali, city ​​that was the epicenter of the massive demonstrations in 2021 in which social sectors demanded inequality, poverty and the right to protest. The president attributed his victory to popular boredom with previous governments and the traditional political system.

Source: Elcomercio

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I am Jack Morton and I work in 24 News Recorder. I mostly cover world news and I have also authored 24 news recorder. I find this work highly interesting and it allows me to keep up with current events happening around the world.