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A four-year period concludes, where four elections were held, aimed at defining the mechanisms to elect the conventional members or councilors and the way to approve a new constitutional text.
The constitutional plebiscite of December 17, 2023 was the most atypical vote in recent times. There was practically no electoral campaign. Small meetings on the corners, modest flag-waving, distribution of flyers at fairs. Absence of campaign closing rallies in the country’s main cities, at least traditional among leftist forces.
Once the votes were known confirming the categorical victory of the “Against” option, no one came out to celebrate in Plaza Baquedano. Not a single car passed through the streets, honking horns and waving flags. Nothing.
Let’s admit that the rejection of the monstrous project imposed by the Republican Party is a relief, because it devastated the social, political, environmental, health, housing and education achievements achieved by the Chilean people over the last hundred years.
The people have spoken clearly and forcefully in favor of the “Against” option and have rejected a Constitution that sought to deepen the ultra-liberal economic and conservative moral model. A constitutional text that denied women’s reproductive rights. A Constitution for the rich, which stripped financial resources from the neediest communities. A Constitution adverse to the environment, intensifying the loss of sovereignty over our natural resources and favoring impunity in matters of serious violations of Human Rights.
Naturally, that is a respite. But we are left with the least bad: Pinochet’s Constitution, reformed during the mandate of Ricardo Lagos and with some modest amendments.
The social outbreak that began in October 2019 was the trigger that led to the constitutional process. The social mobilizations reached a colossal magnitude throughout the country. One million two hundred thousand people demonstrated peacefully in Santiago. A similar situation was experienced in the rest of the country.
From then on, a period characterized by large demonstrations repressed with unusual violence began. International Amnesty “documented how, during the October 2019 demonstrations, Chilean Carabineros committed serious and widespread human rights violations, especially the right to personal integrity, and possible crimes under International Law. According to figures as of March 2021 from the Prosecutor’s Office of the National Human Rights Institute, there are more than 800 victims of state violence and more than 400 cases of ocular trauma.
On October 20, 2019, with the country in a State of Emergency, a curfew and soldiers in the streets, the then president, surrounded by senior Army officers, reiterated that ““We are at war against a powerful, implacable enemy that respects nothing and no one, willing to use violence without any limits.”
Finally, a month later, after feverish days of talks between the ruling party and the opposition, Parliament issued the document “Agreement for Social Peace and new Constitution”, subscribed by all political parties with the exception of the Communist Party, giving life to a Convention, destined to prepare a new constitutional text. An election was called to choose the conventional ones, who gave an overwhelming majority in favor of left-wing forces and independent people, who produced a text praised by many of the most prestigious figures of art, culture, economics and politicians in the world. whole.
However, After a gigantic campaign of distortions and terror, launched by the great economic powers affected by the constitutional proposal, the election aimed at approving this text received an overwhelming rejection, which made it necessary to repeat the constitutional process again.
Parliament assumed full responsibility in defining the mechanisms to formulate a new constitutional proposal. It was agreed to elect 50 councilors in charge of generating it. But be careful: this Council would not prepare any proposal for a new Constitution. You could only accept or reject the proposal prepared by a “Commission of Experts, made up of 24 people with indisputable professional, technical and/or academic experience, of equal composition, elected 12 by the Chamber of Deputies and 12 by the Senate.
Furthermore, in order to avoid any possibility that any proposal adverse to its interests could escape, Parliament defined the existence of a Technical Admissibility Committee made up of 14 people, jurists with outstanding professional and/or academic careers, elected by the Senate in virtue of a single proposal formulated by the Chamber of Deputies. Both votes had to have the support of 4/7 of the members in office.
The result was that the Republican Party obtained an overwhelming majority in the election of the 50 councilors, who were joined by those elected by the UDI and Renovación Nacional, which allowed them to prepare the constitutional proposal already mentioned at the beginning of this column and which fortunately was widely defeated in the election that took place on December 17 of this year.
In CENDA’s opinion, this regrettable situation is the result of ignoring popular sovereignty. We have lost four years in a process that never had a genuinely democratic generation. Only a Constituent Assembly should assume the responsibility of determining the future of a country for several decades, but the current parliamentary majorities seem to have inherited the undemocratic practices imposed by the dictatorship, which governed us for 17 years and chose to design at their will, the entire constitutional process that has ended in this failure.
There are no conditions to propose a new general constitutional attempt in the short term. Nobody would accept it. The constitutional modifications required to carry out the main reforms most necessary and desired by the people are facilitated by the reform approved in 2022 by Parliament, which reduces and standardizes the quorum necessary to modify the Fundamental Charter to 4/7.
None of the serious institutional problems that affect us have been resolved. The pension system will continue to be in force, granting miserable pensions to the vast majority of people. We will continue with a collapsed health system, as well as enormous housing deficits. The irrational exploitation of our natural resources and the enormous income inequality will continue.
No one can assure us that popular anger will not explode again, perhaps more violent, keeping in mind the complex international situation, which makes it difficult to resolve legitimate popular demands.
In this framework, continuing to persist along the sterile path of attempting petty parliamentary agreements with those who abuse the people ceases to make sense and only aggravates the just popular indignation.
The political strategy in current times should consist of ensuring that the broad progressive coalition that met again to vote “Against” coheres and goes on the offensive, thoroughly using the broad powers of political power it holds, to end or At least make clear to the people their intention to put an end to the great abuses that have continued since September 11, 1973.
With the determination of President Allende
CENDA Directory
The opinions expressed in this section are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the thoughts of the newspaper El Clarín
