Articles of the new Constitution of Chile are debated against the clock and between tensions

In less than five months, the Chilean Constitutional Convention should have completed its work. For this, the organ is already working against the clock and The 1,275 standard proposals that were achieved in the first phase have already begun to vote on February 15.

On February 1, the deadline was closed for the 154 conventionals and the citizens to present their proposals for constitutional norms to the body. The constituents introduced 947, citizenship 78 and 250 seats reserved for indigenous peoples. For these proposals to become the norm, they need two-thirds approval, that is, 103 votes.

To date, the body has already discussed and approved more than thirty regulations related to issues of the Justice system and the form of State, with which they become articles for the final text.

Among the most significant changes compared to what is in force in the current Constitution, Chile would be a regional, plurinational and intercultural State “made up of autonomous territorial entities” and the Judicial Power would be replaced by “Justice systems”.

Along with the approvals, there have been cases of regulations that have not been approved by the plenary and must return to the commission that presented them to be corrected or specified.

Controversy over some issues

Nevertheless, This task does not seem easy and the initiatives that are being presented have caused controversy in various sectors of Chilean society.which must participate this year in a mandatory plebiscite to approve or not the new Constitution and within the right-wing caucus.

Norms that propose the review of all free trade agreements, the temporality of judges, among others, or the elimination of the three powers of the State and replace them with a “plurinational assembly of workers and peoples, which was rejected before reaching the discussion in plenary”, are among those that have caused the most questions.

At the same time, there is great expectation when citizen initiatives come under discussion. Of a total of 2,496 initiatives, 78 were accepted. The one that got the most signatures (60,852) was the proposal “Not with my money”, which seeks to guarantee that retirees choose a private insurer or a public institution to keep their savings and be able to inherit them. Proposals to guarantee the right to private property, the free use of marijuana or the legalization of abortion also received solid support.

Some conventional exhibit differences

However, it has been possible to know through the same conventional ones that the environment is tense and there are differences. In the organ the right is very diminished and the main fractions are evident in the leftist and progressive parties. The Socialist Collective and the Broad Front, two political forces that will be key in the mandate of the elected president, Gabriel Boric, are in the majority.

“The disorder is great, fatigue and dispersion abound, we have not managed to structure political coordination and there are, in fact, good reasons for uneasiness, but the importance of the challenge is such that there are no efforts to spare,” revealed the conventional Patricio Fernández, who reports weekly on his website how the Convention is going.

There are also harsher criticisms. Like that of Bernardo Fontaine, a conventional right-winger. “The constitutional discussion today seems like a ship adrift and at risk of sinking,” he stated with special concern for some of the regulations linked to nationalizing mining and the expiration of water rights, collects The country.

Chileans trust that deadlines will be met

Saul Vargas, President of the National Confederation of Workers (CNT) of Chile, describes the alleged tensions or controversies as something artificial and that it has no repercussion on the approved norms and emphasizes that those that have been rejected is not because they did not reach two thirds , but for writing issues.

“The controversy has to do with the most extreme right-wing sector of the Convention, which in the face of the crushing defeat it suffered is considering whether it is worth continuing to participate in the process, it is a small group that has not had an impact so far,” he points out.

Vargas says that when the two thirds of votes for the approval of norms were defined, the idea came from the right, who considered it a difficult margin to reach, but this has not been what has happened.

However, there is fear that the Convention will not achieve the proposed constitutional text until July 4, when its work ends, since so far no intentions have been expressed to increase the body’s work period.

Another alarm situation would be that the eventual proposal is rejected in the exit plebiscite, scheduled for August or September. Like the scenario that manages to be approved by a minimum margin, leaving Chile with an eternal constitutional discussion. Latest polls reveal that the process currently has 33% support and 44% rejection.

The former spokesperson for the Confederation of Chilean Students (Confech) Agustín Salazar says that there is a great possibility that the deadlines will be met and that there is great control within the organ by the center and center-left blocks that prevent there from being obstacles or ruptures from the left and right.

In terms of content, he states that in economic terms he believes that necessary transformations in the area of ​​ownership and production powers, especially mining, the largest source of income for Chile, could be left out. since they are ideas that certain sectors do not contemplate.

“In political terms, there seems to be a consensus to move towards a State with greater political decentralization, greater ethnic and multinational integration, with greater progress in terms of gender, parity and greater possibilities of democratic opening… but there are things that are already a root problem that are not going to be touched and we have to see from the social movements how we face them”, he points out.

For his part, Vargas is also confident that the deadlines will be met and in a few months the exit plebiscite will take place, and he states that he believes that the final text of the possible new Constitution will be much more advanced than expected and that it will be something It is unlikely that it will not be approved.

The wording of a new Constitution was the way out that the Chilean left and a good part of the right agreed to get Chile out of the social crisis derived from the 2019 outbreak. The new Magna Carta option is fully supported by Boric, who will take office on March 11. Different analysts agree that the success of his presidency lies in the success achieved by the Convention.

Giorgio Jackson, the future minister of the General Secretariat of Government, has recognized in interviews that “without a constitutional change, the reform of health and the reform of sexual and reproductive rights run the risk of being considered unconstitutional under the current Magna Carta and the same thing happens with some labor regulations.” (I)