What the President wants is that the arguments of the opposition are not even heard’ and for that purpose, a strategy has been designed that will be deployed this Tuesday during the session of the Chamber of Deputies of the Congress of the Union, according to legislative sources.
MEXICO CITY (Periódico Vanguardia) – The plenary session of the Chamber of Deputies of the Congress of the Union will discuss this Tuesday the ruling on the preferential initiative that President Andrés Manuel López Obrador sent to the Legislative Branch regarding the electricity industry. And for the Morena bench and its allies, the important thing is not only to approve the ruling but also to “silence” the opposition.
Sources from the Federal Legislative Branch confirmed to VANGUARDIA that the primary concern in this Tuesday’s session is not the vote, “because that is guaranteed,” but the debate and, above all, “that the press takes up and highlights the arguments against it.”
“What we have been told in the strategy meetings is that what the President is interested in is that the arguments of the opposition are not heard or not understood so that the media cannot replicate them,” said one of the sources consulted.
For this reason, he pointed out, the chamber leaders of Morena and its allies have developed a strategy that implies, literally, “silencing” the opposition during the plenary session. This strategy has as its fundamental axis the use of the text of the Rules of Procedure of the Chamber of Deputies, particularly concerning the voting of rulings in general and in particular.
Under Article 104 of the referred Rules of Procedure, the discussion, in general, involves giving the floor to six speakers in favor and six against in an alternating manner. After these interventions, the plenary is asked if the matter is sufficiently discussed. If the answer is negative, successive blocks of three speakers in favor and three against are allowed until no more interventions or the subject are considered sufficiently discussed.
“What we are going to do at this point is to register speakers against to prevent the opposition from being able to make use of those spaces,” said another source consulted on the matter. When the list of 12 speakers is exhausted, we will ask that the matter be declared sufficiently discussed to proceed to the vote immediately.”
However, after the vote in general, the vote, in particular, follows, which implies having previously “reserved” specific articles for their discussion. The reservation is made in writing, and this allows its author to use the tribune to explain it for up to five minutes.
“As we cannot prevent them from speaking, the strategy will be to interrupt the speaker constantly so that his intervention is lost or very difficult to understand.” This was confirmed by the sources consulted, who specified that for this purpose, the catalog of motions provided for in Article 114 of the Rules of Procedure of the Chamber of Deputies would be used.
