To comply with the Order of the Constitutional Court (CC), the Board of Directors of Congress continued yesterday with the tenth ordinary session, as required by a group of opposition deputies led by Allan Rodríguez, of the Vamos party; Felipe Alejos, of all, and the unionist Álvaro Arzú Escobar.
However, after two hours and three calls to integrate quorum, the president of Congress, Nery Ramos, had to raise the session.
The opposition denounced the boycott of the session, failures on the electronic board and deputies elected by the Semilla and Cabal movement accused that the reconfiguration of forces in Congress has begun to weaken.
The continuation of the session was scheduled for 2 pm, but began 15 minutes later with the presence of 95 legislators and began with reading the resolution of the CC.
Around 14.18, the board marked the assistance of 58 of the 160 deputies, but a greater number of parliamentarians in the hemicycle could be observed, so Ramos made the first call for the deputies to mark their assistance in the plenary.
In this first count there was a total of 78 deputies in the hemicycle, so the time was given for the bench leaders to make the call to their deputies to make the respective marking.
At that time there were conversations between the deputies Rodríguez, Alejos, Inés Castillo, of the National Unit of La Esperanza (UNE), and Carlos Enrique López, of the value block, while watching the electronic board and the wait was passed to integrate the quorum and continue with the session.
Without achieving quorum
At 3:00 p.m., with 57 marked congressmen, Ramos said that the reading of the CC could not continue until the corresponding number of deputies to continue with the procedure was reached.
Given the insistence of several legislators, mainly from the opposition blocks, two other attempts were made to integrate the plenary, but after 15.40 hours, President Ramos suspended the session due to lack of quorum.
At the end of the plenary, Ramos told the press that, for the sake of transparency, it was requested to zero the board on the hemicycle to verify the presence of the deputies. He also indicated that “those who were present were marked and who decided to register their footprint”, since forcing the other deputies to do so is not within the functions of the president or the Board of Directors.
“The failure of deputy Allan Rodríguez, who claimed that he had the votes was evident.”
Samuel Pérez, Seed Movement.
Controversy
The official Samuel Pérez said that “it was an important victory for the people of Guatemala” and that the failure of deputy Rodríguez was evidenced, who claimed that he had the necessary votes to specify the changes in the first Secretariat and Labor Commissions, among other claims.
At the discretion of Pérez the provisional amparo granted by the CC is without matter, so in the next ordinary session it is no longer necessary to fly to that point.
Rodríguez, head of the Vamos Block, said they will be analyzing the actions that occurred within the hemicycle with the aim of presenting a due execution, because they consider that they were “boycotted” so that several deputies did not enter Congress, because a group hindered them the income. The unionist Álvaro Arzú expressed in the social network X that he was not present in the session due to a commitment he had in advance.
“They wanted to block access and some so we managed to strain to achieve the majority to continue with the session.”
Allan Rodríguez, Vamos Party.
They block accesses
Likewise, Deputy Inés Castillo, head of the bench of the National Unit of Esperanza, indicated that there was a “manipulation” of the electronic board within the hemicycle and said they would expect that this issue can be resolved next week, which is of a political nature and, therefore, it must be resolved in a political way within the plenary.
Congress income was partially blocked by different groups of people. A group was made up of people with covers and balaclavas, who placed at the entrance of the park, on the 8th. Avenida and 9th, street of zone 1, a banner where “no salary increase” was read, in allusion to the increase in the salary of the deputies.
A few meters away were identified as members of the GT Resistance Group, whose representative Sergio Morataya and separated from the other group. Around 2 pm, the group of protesters who had their faces covered withdrew from the place.