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President Petro asked the Senate to vote again on the referendum.

President Petro asked the Senate to vote again on the referendum.

Presidential Address

After the Senate rejected the referendum seeking to revive labor reform, President Gustavo Petro delivered a presidential address from China and asked the corporation to hold a new vote.

(Read more: Consultation decline: Business leaders call for a "labor consultation policy")

"I ask the Senate to put the referendum to a vote again. I ask the people of Colombia; I will be ready to follow their orders in response. The people's time has come," President Petro asserted.

"We didn't expect such a gruesome event as the one in the Senate of the Republic. They weren't even able to win the referendum through the votes of senators. They had to cheat, like the fraud of April 19, 1970, which led us to decades of violence," said the head of state, who was accompanied by several of the ministers who had accompanied him during his visit to the Asian giant.

The president also asserted that Senator Martha Peralta, a member of the ruling party, was not allowed to vote and called the Senate Secretary, Diego Alejandro González, "devious," the person who, according to the government, changed Senator Edgar Díaz's vote. However, Senate records show that the alleged vote change, mentioned by the government, was always negative, and the same opposition parliamentarian corroborated this.

(Read more: Chinese President says he will support companies investing in businesses in Colombia)

Discussion of popular consultation

Discussion of popular consultation.

Nestor Gomez / Portfolio

They question the vote

He also criticized Senate President Efraín Cepeda, the conservative, for, according to President Petro, having "accelerated the closing of the vote when he was one vote ahead. Sly, believing that's how Colombian history is made. This is all they do when they call the country to violence."

"A misstep has been taken by a portion of the Senate and its president. I believe it's time to respond, but we must respond with the wisdom of a determined people, who have already demonstrated their majority, both in public squares and in the polls they conduct," the president added.

In that sense, he called on citizens "not to remain silent" and "to debate in permanent assembly, I ask the open town council of Bogotá, there in the District Council, in the plaza, if they do not let them in, that the organizations meet at the national level, the Federation of Cooperatives, the National Federation of Communal Action, the National Peasant Coordination, with its million registered members, demanding land in Colombia, the labor unions, the youth movement, the indigenous minga, Colombian diversity, Afro organizations (...) so that they propose and all the municipal councils discuss whether or not to approve the proposals that the same popular movement must draw up. We have some, but it is up to the people to make a decision" , said the head of State.

(Read more: Senate plenary session sinks Petro government referendum)

TIME - POLITICS

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