Petition to repeal Bitcoin Law without support in El Salvador’s Legislative Assembly

There is no majority support for the request made to the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador, by the deputies representing the Nationalist Alliance party (Arena), to repeal the Bitcoin Law that grants legal tender status to cryptocurrency.

The information was published on Wednesday, June 23, 2021 by El Mundo newspaper in El Salvador. This media reported that the proposal was made through a communication that did not have a hand in other parliamentarians of the Congress.

Arena party congressman René Portillo Cuadra argued that the Bitcoin Law ” would raise the price of the electricity we pay, it is a law that is propitiating that financial institutions can not lend to El Salvador.”

Upon learning the position of this parliamentarian on the aforementioned regulations, deputies Numan Salgado and Romeo Auerbach, of the Grand Alliance for National Unity (Gana), an allied party of the ruling party, affirmed that his party will not support the repeal of the Bitcoin Law.

Salgado expanded his comment by saying that Arena and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) are asking for changes or repeal of the aforementioned law because they seek to generate uncertainty and fear in the citizens of El Salvador.

We are seeing that Arena and the FMLN are against the implementation of the Bitcoin Law. We think that they do it with the sole objective of generating fear in the population, of generating distrust and that the implementation of this digital currency, therefore, does not have the success. We believe that they are defending the interests of the formal financial sector because they would lose the fees they receive from any monetary transaction.

Deputy Numan Salgado, representative of the Gana party.

Other MPs defend Bitcoin Law

For his part, Deputy Reinaldo Carballo, of the Christian Democratic Party (PDC), defended Bitcoin Lawwhose regulations are in the process of being drawn up and have 90 days to submit them to the public.

Carballo said that only the financial sector of El Salvador will be affected when this regulation enters into forcenext September 7th.

“Everyone thinks that we are all economists and this town goes coyol bankrupt, coyol eaten. It’s going to be a virtual currency that deals with transactions, what we are earning is those commissions that they charge us from the United States here, which are left to the bank for pressing keys. [Por ese motivo] I do not support the (Arena) initiative,” Carballo said in rejection of the request to repeal the Bitcoin Law.

Bitcoin law generates controversies among parliamentarians

MP Marleni Funes of the FMLN expressed willingness to study proposal to repeal Bitcoin Law. However, he believes that no initiative by opposition MPs against this regulation will succeed.

Funes added the following sentence:”Both the reform and the repeal will not happen in this Legislative Assembly and I also have my doubts in this Constitutional Chamber, here it is only left for the population to organize and say whether they are in favor or against this law.”

The parliamentarian reiterated that it has to get to know the Arena proposal in depth to decide if he would support the repeal of the Bitcoin Law.

For his part, Congressman Johnny Wright Sol of the Arena party proposed a reform to the Labour code. This regulation establishes that they will receive the salary”in the legal tender currency”. From next September 7, the dollar and bitcoin will cohabit in El Salvador.

Wright Sol asks, therefore, reform the Labor Code to expressly stipulate that wages shall be paid in dollars.

However, it will be the Supreme Court of Justice of El Salvador will be the one that will judge if the Bitcoin Law goes against the Constitution, as Crypto News reported on June 22, 2021.

Attorney Óscar Artero, as a Salvadoran citizen, legal initiative sued unconstitutional approved last June 8, before the Constitutional Chamber of the highest Salvadoran judicial authority.