Looks like two key bills will not make it through Congress and will have to be submitted again. The bills are the controversial Electoral Regime and the Penal Code. While the political parties reached a consensus to pass a Political Parties Law, the electoral regime bill has not garnered the same support of legislators. If it is not passed by 12 January, final date of the current legislative session, it is unlikely there will be time to apply the amendments to present legislature in the 2020 general election.
The next legislature opens on 27 February 2019. Each legislative session lasts for 150 days.
The president of the Chamber of Deputies Radhames Camacho said that if President Danilo Medina calls for an extraordinary legislative session, the bills could be studied and there would be time to apply the new electoral rules in the 2020 general elections.
Other bills that are languishing in Congress are the Water Code, Contraband Bill, Civil Penal Code, Civil Procedures Code, Commerce Code, Land Use Bill, among others.
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El Nacional
7 January 2019
