Colombia’s leftist President Gustavo Petro and the far-right of the opposition clashed over the government’s 2026 referendum bill and a tax reform that seeks to increase revenue.
The 2026 budget bill would allow the government to increase spending to $133 billion (COP557 trillion). In order to finance this, the government also proposed a finance bill, which seeks to generate a $6.3 billion (COP26 trillion) increase in revenue.
The budget and finance bills were almost immediately rejected by far-right opposition party Democratic Center, whose lawmakers said they would vote to return the bill.
House Representative Christian Garces of the far-right Democratic Center party said that the government “presented a budget that is even more inflated than the last one” and urged Congress to return the bill “to adjust the project to a version that is more realistic, responsible and in line with the real needs of the nation.”
Democratic Center Senator Maria Fernando Cabal told Petro on Twitter that “your budget of $556 trillion pesos will be denied as well as your tax reform with which they intend to extract more money from Colombians who have not seen any constructions, security, housing, health or education, only corruption.”
In a response, the president told Cabal that in that event “any transfer to sectors of big capital will be cut back.”
“What will not be cut is the money that goes to social justice, education and health,” added Petro.
The president is legally allowed to implement his budget proposal without congressional approval, which happened last year amid growing tensions between the government and its opposition in Congress.
Following that feud, the government was forced to cut back on spending because Congress also rejected the finance law, leaving the government without the funds it needed to cover the costs.
Also last year, Petro threatened to recover the losses from programs that effectively benefitted the wealthiest sector of society.
