Vote on presidential vetoes postponed again

For the second consecutive day, and for the same reason—lack of quorum—the congressional session this morning (Oct. 7), to analyze President Rousseff's vetoes on bills that would have incurred increased government costs, ended without deliberating the proposals.

Even after Congress President Senator Renan Calheiros suspended the session for 30 minutes trying to achieve the quorum, only 223 deputies—257 deputies is the minimum number required for the plenary to vote—had ed their presence. Among the senators, the quorum of 41 senators was easily achieved, and at the end of the session, 68 of the 81 senators were ready to vote.

"In Senate, the bench is complete. Unfortunately, the crisis has been brought here [to Congress], who's in the hot seat today is Congress. To have the government being defeated or triumphant is part of the game. Now to regularly have the plenary session empty is not, in my view, part of the game," declared Eunício Oliveira, head of the Brazilian democratic Movement Party (PMDB) at Senate.

In the lower house, PMDB's leader Leonardo Picciani declared yesterday that the reason for the unsuccessful vote was the day of the week chosen and the time set for the session. He merely said that the PMDB were present and did their part. According to him, the presidency is responsible for talking to the parties, which have to explain their reasons. "Dialogue can always solve everything," he said.

For Lower House Speaker Eduardo Cunha, who reaffirmed being for maintaining vetoes on cost-incurring proposals, nothing has changed, "Those for it continue to be for it, and those against it continue to be against it," he stated.

From the opposition bench, Mendonça Filho, DEM head in the Lower House, described the situation as "shameful".

"A few days after the new ministers' inauguration, the government has not even the power to guarantee the quorum to deliberate and analyze the vetoes in Congress.”

Among the pending vetoes, the most sensitive is a bill to raise 56% of the pay of Judiciary officials. Vetoed by President Dilma Rousseff, the bill provides that the raise of pays shall be conducted by 2019. According to Ministry of Planning, if approved, the proposal will incur in a raise of $1.39 billion in 2016 expenses. In four years, until 2019, in the government's projections, the amount of expenses will total $9.51 billion. The new date to deliberate the presidential vetoes has not been set by Congress President Renan Calheiros yet.

Translated by Amarílis Anchieta

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