Chaos, cursing and the drunkenness of a number of bored representatives
prevented the Colombian House of Representatives to vote about the
re-election of President Álvaro Uribe and the controversial Victim’s
Law Monday.
The eleven-hour meeting of the House apparently was too much for some of the country’s representatives who decided to take to drinking. According to some of the sober representatives, whiskey had been flowing down the throats of some of the lawmakers that had resulted in the plain drunkenness of some.
When one of the congressman — the always quiet Eduardo Crissien of coalition party Partido de la U — wanted to publicly discuss a law on gambling that was already denied a week ago chaos erupted.
House chairman Germán Varón Cotrino wasn’t able to silence the passionate representative, resulting in the interference of representatives that were not going to discuss a law long denied.
Congressmen started applauding, screaming, throwing pencils and exchanged insults. This only worsened when representative Guillermo Rivera (Liberal Party) tried discussing the country’s Victim’s Law, the controversial law arranging the compensation of victims of the country’s 44-year violent conflict.
Rivera accused his colleagues of having passed around a bottle of whiskey and were drunk. The accused congressmen denied and said Rivera wanted to divert the attention from the subject.
Liberal Party congressmen then gathered the plastic cups that had been going around and present journalists confirmed they had whiskey in them.
Chairman Varón then decided to postpone the vote on the Victims Law and teh later scheduled referendum until Tuesday.