With all the expectations placed on the result of Sunday’s presidential election, the Frente de Todos does not abandon the idea of moving forward with the projects that the Minister of Economy and Union for the Homeland candidate, Sergio Massa, sent to Congress. This Wednesday, prior to the start of the electoral ban, the ruling party will convene the Budget and Finance Commission of the Upper House in search of giving a favorable opinion to the Purchase Without VAT Program that has half a sanction from Deputies. Although its arrival at the Senate floor to become law – for regulatory reasons – will already be with the result of the October 22 elections.
Other initiatives with economic impact that the Lower House approved also do not escape the ruling party in the Senate, such as promotions to the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) industries for export and the footwear industry; in addition to its own issues such as a series of documents from judges, prosecutors and defenders in the national and federal justice system that already have a favorable opinion from the Agreements Commission but that have not yet been addressed in the plenary session of the legislative body. To which is added Massa’s announcement to send to Parliament a project to turn the Pre-Trip program into law.
With multiple initiatives in the pipeline, the activity of Congress – until the regular period ends on November 30 – will be subject to the electoral result this Sunday.
After sealing the lengthy agreement with the IMF until the end of the year, on the multimillion-dollar debt contracted by former president Mauricio Macri, Massa managed to implement measures of economic and social impact that he proposed to transform into law. He achieved this – not without difficulties in a Congress with a complex parity of forces between the ruling party and the opposition – with the elimination of the fourth category of the Income Tax, which benefited 800 thousand workers in the highest pyramid of the salary scale that now they will not pay the tribute.
The same is proposed with the VAT-Free Purchase Program, to turn into law starting next year the implementation of the refund of the tax on the purchase of products in the family basket that the Ministry of Economy extended until the end of the year. A measure of great impact that reaches registered workers, retirees and pensioners, monotributists and beneficiaries of Social Plans, which the ruling party does not want to postpone.
For this reason, the FdT senators will advance this Wednesday in search of a favorable opinion in the Budget commission for the half-sanction of Deputies. The internal regulations of the Upper House establish a period of seven days for the opinion of a project to reach the chamber. The FdT wants to have everything ready for the week following the election, where it will seek to turn into law one of the initiatives with the greatest distributive reach for the lowest-income sectors that was adopted at the end of the Government, beyond what the polls show. .
The fate of other economic projects will be different, many of which will be tied to the electoral result. From the FdT-UxP they trust – as the questioned polls predict – that Massa will be in a possible presidential runoff. Then, a parliamentary race against time will begin: the ordinary sessions end at the end of November, the commissions have time to rule up to a week before and the hypothetical second round is scheduled for November 19.
Among the projects in the pipeline that Massa sent to Parliament is the law on the Promotion of LNG for export from the production of Vaca Muerta and the transportation of the fluid through the Néstor Kirchner Gasduct. As well as the strengthening of the footwear industry and its national brand for export. Both in the Senate to become law.
To which would be added the proposal announced by the minister-candidate himself to seek to convert the Pre-Travel Program into law, which impacts the hotel and gastronomy industry throughout the country and “generates 550 thousand jobs.”
The ruling party also aspires in the Senate to advance in the appointment of judges and prosecutors in the National and Federal justice system still pending treatment, in the midst of the paralysis of the Council of the Judiciary, now in the hands of the president of the Supreme Court after the courtiers will declare “unconstitutional” the law on their integration that was in force for 15 years and replaced a previous law repealed by Congress.
Nor will the evolution of the Impeachment Trial of the members of the Supreme Court carried out by the Chamber of Deputies depend on the electoral result. The ruling party, which has its own majority in the commission, moved forward with the filing of charges against the supreme officials for different investigations into their management and is preparing the accusatory opinion against all the magistrates that it hopes to complete before November 20. A ruling that, if approved, will maintain its parliamentary status for three years, waiting for other political winds to blow to continue with the process that could trigger his dismissal.
Although the ruling party is certain – also according to the polls and the result of the August 13 primaries – that the new government will have an even more fragmented Congress than the current one.
