During these first five months of the year, the deputies of the tenth legislature increased the salary, they stopped meeting for several weeks and, last week, two deputies had a confrontation that rose to pushes and physical aggressions.
Arabella Castro, who was president of the Congress of the Republic twice, between 1994-1995 and in the period 1997-1998, points out that these situations show the degraded one that the legislative power has today.
In an interview with Free press He stressed that deputies act for their own interests, which are not the interests of the population because legislators are chosen by party lists and not in their own way.
their saying, they must act under the guidelines of their political groups. Such a situation directly affects governance, central government, the population and even the country’s democracy.
What is your vision on the work of the tenth legislature this year?
For me there are two symptoms, first that the Government won with few deputies and I consider that there are no serious parties in the Congress of the Republic.
There is little institution, they are political parties that are not institutions, they are banks without interest.
How does it affect that banks and parties do not work as political institutions?
It affects us all, it affects us in the institutionality. In the political parties, institutionality is healthy, which there are political parties that are institutions and function in this way helps the country because it is understood if suddenly there is a bench of deputies with the secretary general discussing a law that is on the agenda. But rather, they are deputies causing them to win, that they have no banks, that they seem to not reach the plenary or want to break the quorum.
For example, with the increase in salary, when I participated in politics, the Secretary General or the General Executive Committee would have told us deputies “they lower it or expel them.” Where are the executive committees? Where are the general secretaries?
There are no matches, there are only dissonant voices, where everyone does what you want.
What can be done before a congress with aimless benches, as you mention?
For me the biggest problem in this congress is that there are no political parties.
In general, I believe that the Guatemalans have to reconsider, for which we are voting for the Presidency of the Republic, it cannot be left alone in the election to Congress.
We have seen different scenarios when many deputies arrive (from the official bench) have put themselves in the commitment to buy the votes and I am not talking about buying the votes in the sense of giving them money, but allowing them to put a relative in a state office and that kind of thing to manage to control a majority in the plenary.
The opposition cannot always vote against, that does not speak well of a deputy.
In this case I make a call to the Guatemalans to think the vote well. He has attacked a lot that the vote for the same party for president and for deputies, but I think we do want a more serious governance to do so because in the end one has such a party responsible for good or for worse.
The opposition cannot always vote against, that does not speak well of a deputy, nor can he always vote in favor. As deputies they must have intelligence and vote for what will favor the country.
It is the general secretaries who have to influence their bench, it is the institutions that must guide the deputies on how to pronounce on a certain law or vote.
Do you think it is in this legislature where the problem of the operation of the benches has become evident?
We have been easy for about eight years to have degraded the institutionality of political parties within the Congress. There are three governments, that of Jimmy Morales, Alejandro Giammattei and the current one.
What will be the consequences for the country of this situation?
Democracy weakens and young people will surely have less interest in voting for deputies for seeing an environment as the one I am describing. I reiterate, we must not look for a flattener, but if they do not arrive alone because right now you cannot blame the government because they have a very small bench.
How can this problem be solved?
But there are changes in the electoral law and political parties that allow at least the Supreme Electoral Court (TSE) to cancel parties that do not reach the minimum of votes. Modifications must be made in the law because there is no longer a true representation of a political thought, a political ideology and that at all helps the country.
But it would be the same deputies who would have to vote for these reforms …
We have to put a little of grip as Guatemalans so that this can be achieved.