Colombia’s Minister of the Interior, Alfonso Prada, has stated this Friday that the Government will not support any initiative to extend the term of office of any of the currently elected authorities, in view of the proposal currently being debated in Congress to increase the terms of office to five years.
The proposal will reach next week the third debate in the First Commission of the Colombian House of Representatives, although in principle it would not come into force as from the elections of 2023, but would take effect as from the presidential elections of 2026.
In this sense, Prada has stated that both the president, Gustavo Petro, and the rest of the congressmen aspire to serve the four-year term for which they were elected. «At the four years we finish, we will hand over power to the president who has been democratically elected», he has pointed out.
In fact, Heráclito Landinez, the rapporteur of the political reform, has pointed out that extending the current term would be unconstitutional, according to ‘El Tiempo’, which has been able to learn that the proposal comes from the Conservative Party and in principle will not be included in the political reform report, although it could be discussed as an initiative during the debate.
During the first two debates in the Senate, Petro’s Executive highlighted that the reform intends to put an end to clientelism and electoral corruption. Among the modifications, it has included opting for closed lists to «clean up politics and change the clientelist system», in the words of Senator Roy Barreras.
