The convention in charge of drafting a new Constitution in Chile meets six months this Tuesday and is ready to choose its new president, after the end of the mandate of the Mapuche academic Elisa Loncón.
Next, the milestones of the world’s first joint constituent body, which has the task of finishing drafting the new rules of the game in another six months so that Chile can finally bury the current Magna Carta, inherited from the dictatorship (1973-1990) and questioned in the 2019 protests for its neoliberal tendency.
Rugged installation
On July 4, 2020, the 155 citizens elected at the polls to integrate the convention appeared in the old National Congress, in Santiago, to take office in a historic but austere act due to the restrictions of the pandemic and with all channels of television broadcasting live.
When the reporting secretary of the Elections Qualifying Court (Tricel), Carmen Gloria Valladares, was preparing to begin the ceremony, several constituents took to the streets to denounce police repression against relatives of detainees in the social outbreak that were demonstrating on the outskirts of the compound. .
They were moments of extremely high tension and Balladares was forced to suspend the session for more than an hour. Showing great temperance, the civil servant managed to channel the act and the conventional ones – in their majority independent of progressive tendency – swore or promised their positions.
But the controversy did not end there: the next day the constituents could not begin meeting because the Government had not adequately conditioned the former Congress, which cost Francisco Encina, the official in charge of ensuring the proper functioning of the convention. , and aroused a series of criticisms for alleged “boycott”.
Loncón makes history
Loncón, a doctor in Humanities and a Mapuche activist – the majority indigenous ethnic group in Chile – was elected president by majority in the second round and her speech on July 4 will go down in Chilean history.
“I want to thank all the people of Chile for voting for a Mapuche person and woman to change the history of this country,” she said in the Mapudungún language and dressed in the typical costume.
Included by Time magazine in its list of the most influential personalities in 2021, the linguist will foreseeably be replaced this Tuesday by another woman: “This country requires a policy with tenderness,” she said the day before.
A constituent without cancer
The confession on September 4 of the constituent Rodrigo Rojas Vade, who admitted having pretended to have cancer, was probably the most critical moment of the convention.
“I will defend myself in court, because I am not a criminal, I am someone who made a mistake,” said the still constituent, who is popularly known as “Pelao Vade” and became famous for protesting in 2019 with striking posters against the high costs of the chemotherapy treatments.
“Pelao Vade”, who is being investigated by the Prosecutor’s Office for alleged fraud, resigned from one of the seven vice presidencies of the convention and, although he cannot resign from his seat, he has not participated in the constituent debate since then.
Two years from 18-0
After three months preparing its own operating regulations – a task completed in record time – the convention decided to start the substantive debate on the constitutional norms on October 18, when it was two years since the social outbreak.
“We are an original, territorial, participatory and diverse constituent power, which emerges thanks to different processes of accumulation of unrest,” said then the vice president, Jaime Bassa, who will also be replaced during the day.
The constituent process was the solution agreed by the majority of political forces to solve the crisis of 2019, the most serious since the return to democracy, with thirty deaths, thousands of injuries and accusations against the security forces for violations of the human rights.
In the regulations, it was established that the articles of the new text must be approved by a two-thirds majority (104 seats), which implies great consensus.
Boric’s support
Two days after his resounding victory in the December 19 ballot against the far-right José Antonio Kast, the president-elect, Gabriel Boric, visited the convention in a clear gesture of support for the constituent process, something that the president has not done so far. outgoing, the conservative Sebastián Piñera.
“I do not expect a partisan convention, at the service of our Government,” said the former student leader, who is the youngest and most voted president-elect in Chilean history.
Calling a referendum on the new rules and implementing them, if approved, will be some of the great challenges of his term, which will begin in March 2022.
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