Bogotá, Jul 7 (EFE).- Former Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said on Sunday that there are no arguments to justify calling a National Constituent Assembly, as the government wants, and warned that doing so would be “getting into a dead end.”
“Given the level of uncertainty that the country is experiencing, the proposal to call a constituent assembly is the last thing we need (…) said proposal is inconvenient, unnecessary and is getting into a dead end because there is no time, no votes, no arguments,” Santos said in a video published on X.
The former president, winner of the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize, made these statements following the new Colombian Minister of the Interior, Juan Fernando Cristo, said that he would take office with the aim of seeking a national agreement that would allow exploring “the possibility” of convening a National Constituent Assembly, an idea of President Gustavo Petro.
Cristo, who was Minister of the Interior during Santos’ mandate (2010-2018), assured in a statement that one of his fundamental purposes will be “the search for a truly national agreement that will allow us to explore, in the future, the possibility of convening a National Constituent Assembly under the parameters of the 1991 Constitution.”
Petro has been outlining in public events the idea of a Constituent Assembly that would allow for the inclusion of social reforms proposed by his government that are bogged down in Congress.
However, in his latest statements, instead of talking regarding convening a National Constituent Assembly, he has mentioned that it must be the people themselves who request it, as a primary constituent.
In this regard, Santos asked the new minister and the Government to dedicate themselves to implementing the peace agreement that he signed with the FARC guerrillas in 2016, “As the international community will ask President Petro at the Security Council this week in New York.”
“This would be a very good government program for the two years remaining, it does not require constitutional reforms and in many cases not even new laws, what is required is political will and management and coordination capacity. The great national agreement should be around this purpose,” said Santos.
Finally, the former president stressed that Christ was “a very good Minister of the Interior” and he predicted success for him, although he clarified that «He, like others» of its former officials who are in the Petro Government “They have been chosen for their qualities, their personal abilities and not as representatives of Sanctism, because Sanctism does not exist.”
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2024-07-09 11:55:35
