The Conservative Party gave its support to a bill proposing the allocation of more power to President Juan Manuel Santos, quelling last week’s concern of a possible split in the National Unity coalition, Caracol Radio reported Monday.
After a meeting of more than three hours at the presidential palace, the Casa de Nariño, the Conservatives declared that they will vote on the draft bill that will grant the government special powers over the next six months to divide three government ministries and restructure some state agencies.
Conservative Party President Jose Dario Salazar said, “We are very pleased, we have offered unconditional support to his government, his policies, his ministers, especially conservative ministers.”
Last week there had been speculation that the Conservative members were hoping to prevent the bill as a way of restricting the work of Minister for Justice and the Interior German Vargas Lleras.
Vargas Lleras is currently in the process of investigating politicians, some of whom are Conservative members, who are accused of being involved in a corruption scandal over the management of assets seized from drug traffickers and mis-administered by the drug agency DNE.
In addition, Conservative Party members are said to be upset by the way Vargas “did a sweep” of Conservatives within his own ministry and Colombia’s prison authority INPEC according to an anonymous source.
The Conservative Party denied that this was their motivation behind the potential stalling of the bill.
A vote on the draft is set to be held on Tuesday in the Senate.
