The new authorities of the body must lead the debate on the content of the draft new Constitution for six months.
After six rounds of voting, the Constituent Convention of Chile, the first parity in the world, could not elect its new board of directors on Tuesday.
The independents Cristina Dorador and Patricio Fernández were the most supported to preside for the next six months the body that is beginning one of its most important stages, the debate and writing of the articles that the Magna Carta will have, which will be submitted to a plebiscite ratification scheduled for the second half of this year.
After 10:30 p.m. in Chile (8:30 p.m. in Ecuador), none of the candidates had obtained the 78 votes necessary to preside over the Convention. However, the vote to elect the vice president and other management positions would continue after 23:00.
Mapuche academic Elisa Loncon and Jaime Bassa, professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Valparaíso, they were the ones who led the first board of directors since July 4, which came to an end on Tuesday. Now they will rejoin their respective benches – seats reserved for Loncon and Frente Amplio for Bassa.
Before the end of her term, Loncon said she was “happy” that the candidates with the most options to replace her are women and assured that Chile “requires a policy with tenderness.”
The now former president indicated that her successors “have to follow the regulations and” maintain what is already in place, such as multinationality, parity, diversity, decentralization and the rights that we are incorporating, such as those of Mother Earth. “
“We have 6 months left, let’s keep listening, dialoguing and deepening democracy on this path that has us developing a new route guide for the emerging dignified society.” I leave my closing speech as president of the @convencioncl https://t.co/MivjKM0wEw
– Elisa Loncon – Mapuche Constituent (@ElisaLoncon) January 4, 2022
After months preparing the operating regulations and designing the different thematic commissions, the convention has just started the substantive debate on the constitutional articles, “a road that has been long and not free of difficulties, “said Loncon.
The new text, which should be ready in mid-2022, will replace the current one, inherited from the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990) and considered by many as the origin of the country’s inequalities.
In the current process 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 for the banks.
Although it was reformed more than 50 times in democracy, the current constitution was inspired by the so-called “Chicago Boys”, a group of ultra-liberal economists who were disciples of Milton Friedman and who promoted the privatization of services such as water, pensions and health, pick up EFE.
Most of the 155 members of the convention see in the constituent process an opportunity to change the current subsidiary role of the State and guarantee more social rights, a vision that is also shared by the president-elect, Gabriel Boric.
The constituent process was proposed to ease the wave of protests against inequality that broke out in October 2019, the biggest social crisis in the 31 years of Chilean democracy, which left some thirty dead and thousands injured.
However, in these first six months of the process the controversy has not been alien to it. From not having a place for everyone to meet as a group, to the confession of the constituent Rodrigo Rojas Vade, who acknowledged having pretended to have cancer, has been one of the most critical moments.
Key dates for the process
Meanwhile, for this new period that is beginning, some key dates that the constituents must meet as well as meet in other parts of the country to comply with the provisions of the regulations have already been set.
First, from January 7, and on six occasions until June 6, the Technical Secretariat of the Convention will prepare a first report evaluating the progress of the schedule to examine how the constitutional work has been developed and if the dates are met .
Another key date will be January 20, This day ends the term of entry of popular initiatives for the new Constitution. From that day on, the seven thematic commissions must begin to vote on the initiatives of constitutional norms and on January 26, the first reports of the commissions are scheduled to be sent so that the other conventional ones take cognizance of their work.
February 1 is also important, it is the deadline to sponsor proposals through the Popular Participation portal. Each initiative requires a minimum of 15 thousand signatures. So far, 372 proposals have been published and only two have obtained signatures, La Tercera collects.
By February 11, the Technical Secretariat will publish the second schedule progress evaluation report. In that same week, the first three plenary sessions for the presentation of reports, deliberations and / or voting on constitutional proposals of each commission will be held, a process that will continue until March 31.
In case the dates are met and the Convention has topics that have not obtained the 2/3 of qúorum To be approved, but that they have achieved the 3/5, the eventual realization of the deciding plebiscite is foreseen for May 28 where the citizenry will be able to participate, but said consultation will be subject to the prior approval of the Congress of the constitutional modification that allows its realization. (I)
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