BRAZIL CONGRESS WEEK-Lawmakers return for reforms
Reuters, Monday, January 05, 1998 at 14:17
By William Schomberg
BRASILIA, Jan 5 (Reuters) - Brazil's Congress was due to interrupt its end-of-year recess Tuesday to begin a six-week, extraordinary session called by the government to make headway on long-awaited structural reforms and other important legislation.
But despite earning triple pay of $22,000 in January alone, many lawmakers were expected to stay away from Brasilia this week and whips were working hard to make sure there was quorum to begin committee-level deliberations of the reforms.
The controversial social security reform has already passed both houses of Congress, but is back in the lower house after the Senate restored points defeated in the Chamber of Deputies in 1996.
The government needs to ensure that a minimum of 52 deputies are in Congress to kick off discussions of the reform.
"It looks like they'll get the numbers," said political analyst Carlos Lopes of consultants Santa Fe Ideias.
But Lopes said that while the reform might be approved in the committee during the January 6-February 13 extraordinary session, there was little chance of a first full vote on the floor of the lower house until early March, after the Carnival holiday.
"I think it will be a victory if they get the reform through the committee," he said.
Under congressional rules, constitutional reforms may be studied at committee-level in the lower house for up to 40 working days and opposition parties are expected to use every delaying tactic in the book to slow the social security bill.
Several members of government-allied parties are also reported to be against some articles of the reform, in particular an item which would make pensioners contribute to the social security system.
Should the bill be altered again, it will have to go back to the Senate, ruling out its approval before presidential, congressional and state governorship elections in October.
Government whips have said they have until June to get reforms through Congress. After that, most lawmakers will only be thinking about the elections.
The government's other centerpiece reform bill -- of the civil service -- looks like having a less complicated ride in the Senate, having been approved in the lower house late last year.
A Senate committee was due to begin mulling that reform this week and most political observers say the government will probably manage to get it through that panel, and hold a first full vote in the upper house, before the Carnival break.
Both the social security and the civil service reform bills are considered essential to Brazil's chances of introducing long-term structural reform.
The government redoubled its efforts to get the bills approved in response to Asia's financial crisis which exposed Brazil's own precarious fiscal position.
While most eyes were likely to be on the reforms' progress during the extraordinary session, the government also wants to make progress on other important bills including legislation to curb money-laundering and introduce simpler labor laws.
Another bill seeks to create a "mini" constitutional review to be held in 1999 and which would seek to modernize Brazil's political system -- principally by reducing the number of political parties -- and streamline the tax system.
william.schomberg@reuters.com))
Copyright 1998, Reuters News Service |
