At the beginning of the session on Tuesday, the senator and chairman PS, Carlos Montes, asked for the floor to make a political point and propose a plan to prepare a collective response to the imminent debate that will take place at the Constitutional Convention.
Although the debate was reopened after the PC deputy and senator-elect Daniel Nunez proposed to “close” the Senate to move to a model unicameral (after the rejection of the constitutional accusation against President Sebastián Piñera), it was an idea that has been present in the deliberations of the conventional and certain political groups, especially on the left.
The words of Núñez generated annoyance and yesterday Montes highlighted that discomfort. “Now anyone says anything, the truth is that what some deputies said was very insolent and aggressive”said the socialist, who did not stand for re-election and will leave Congress.
Aware of the onslaught that is brewing against the institutional role of the Senate and that sooner or later it will have to be defended, Montes proposed that the room ask the Library of Congress for a study on the advantages or disadvantages of the bicameral models (as exists today in Chile) and unicameral (only with deputies) as proposed by some sectors.
Also, with a beaten tone, He proposed to the room and the table to hold a seminar, “not beyond January”, to debate with academics, civil society and political leaders on the role of the Upper House, that serves as input so that the president of the Senate, Ximena Rincon, present a collective opinion before the constituent body.
“Here we must reflect and draw conclusions. In my opinion, the minimum is that once and for all this Senate has a reflection of what the Legislative Power means and the role of the different powers (…). You, President, will have to speak at the (Constitutional) Convention at any time and it is very important to present a reflection of the whole”Said the socialist.
Montes’s proposals were welcomed by the hemicycle and The president of the Senate announced that next Friday, at the committee meeting, they will analyze the issue to agree on a work plan and set dates for that seminar.
The socialist’s harangue was just one of the political signals that the ruling and opposition senators gave yesterday after the results of Sunday’s elections, which for the first time left the main conglomerates that governed the country out of the ballot and La Moneda. country in the last 30 years.
At the luncheon for opposition senators, which takes place every Tuesday on the fourth floor of the Upper House, the question was present: What do we do now?
Some raised the possibility of taking advantage of the remaining months before next March to set up an agenda, given that after that month they will not have a majority. Others raised the need to initiate a dialogue with the ruling party.
At a press point, Senator Rincón also gave another message. “I want to make a call to take care of our democracy, take care of what it cost us so much to have, value and take care of the adversary, be respectful of those who think differently, and I think that implies taking care of the language, taking care of the caricatures that are made of the other, Whoever wins, our democracy has to be strengthened and cared for”, Said the president of the Senate, who even during the debate on the accusation of Piñera had been raising her concern about the political tension.
In the Senate, some legislators comment that Rincón has begun to probe the post-election environment with his peers trying to project how the final months of the Piñera government will be and with what spirit the benches will arrive as of March.
In those informal conversations -which began to take place yesterday in corridors and secluded places within the hemicycle and which drew as the first conclusion that it is necessary to lower belligerence in the statements-, the senators have also participated Juan Antonio Coloma placeholder image (UDI), the president of RN, Francisco Chahuán; the helmsman of the PS, Álvaro Elizalde; the head of bench DC, Francisco Huenchumilla, among others.
For some, it is time for each group to review their strategies, even more so when the center-left-left and center-right-right forces were tied “in theory” in the Senate. The word “in theory”, in any case, was highlighted by several senators yesterday, since any drop would quickly leave a minority sector.
Pro-government senators consulted by La Tercera PM indicate that the tie can be an opportunity for everyone to open up to a logic of understanding and persuasion. Along these lines, they believe that it is key to the institutional future of the country that the Senate regain temperance, in view of the fact that the climate of polarization in the Chamber will probably persist (proof of this was the controversy of the deputy-elect Johannes Kaiser) and that the next government, whoever wins, will not be able to resolve the social unrest in the short term, in addition to that neither Gabriel Boric nor José Antonio Kast will have majorities to legislate.
An important milestone to verify if there is enough spirit of understanding will be the way in which the future president of the Senate will be elected, who must take office on March 11, 2022. Therefore, it is a conversation that must be resolved before the inauguration of the new President of the Republic.
“In a tied Senate, which had not happened since 1990, and a complex, polarized period, the idea is that the Senate is a space for dialogue to generate governance. We have held informal conversations with different banks, thinking about what lies ahead, and I have no doubt that the Senate will give governance to Chile “, admits Chahuán.
Indeed, the balance of forces is similar to what existed in 1989, where although the Concertación won more senators, the right had the subsidy of institutional senators who generally acted in tune with that sector.
The imminent clash led Jaime Guzmán, the late senator and founder of the UDI, to enter into a negotiation with the Concertación to form a mixed committee of the Senate and the Chamber. Then, unionism yielded the presidency of the Senate to Gabriel Valdes (DC) and from the Chamber to José Antonio Viera-Gallo (PS). That dialogue, considered the cornerstone of the call The policy of agreements, which prevailed in the governments of the Concertación, is today known as the Guzmán-Valdés pact.
–
