Orlando Gil, political commentator for El Siglo newspaper, tries to make sense in his column today of why the Executive Branch did not send a bill to Congress for Constitutional Reform as it said it would. Apparently what presidential legal advisor Guido Gomez Mazara sent to the Senate was a “letter of intent” with attachments of the pact signed by the three leading political parties and the recommendations made by the civic society commission appointed by the President. Technically, the President only can send bills, not letters of intent, explains Gil, who says the Senate would be within its right to return the documents to the Presidency or ignore them for violating procedures and instead act on the bill submitted by PRD senator Dario Gomez, one of the most vocal promoters of extending the terms of congressmen by way of a modification to the Constitution. Gil speculates that by not sending a bill, the President has left the congressmen free to do what they please. But he observes that congressmen he has spoken to say they will comply with the agreement signed by the parties. Gil wonders if sending an incomplete bill to reform the Constitution will be ammunition for the President’s political adversaries. “Not only will there be talk of incompetency, but of scheming. No one will believe it was not planned,” he writes.
