This Monday, the Constituent Convention of Chile, in charge of writing the new Constitution of the country, will deliver to the Harmonization Commission the draft that will be submitted to a popular vote in the month of September.
The 154 members of the Convention concluded on Saturday the drafting of the content, after the last votes of the articles that will be part of this draft.
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In total there are 499 articles that make up the draft, many aimed at increasing social rights: create a universal health system, strengthen public education, gender co-responsibility, protect the environment or increase the rights of indigenous peoples, who until now had not been included in any constitutional process.
These are the key points to understand the constituent process and the new draft of the Chilean Magna Carta.
What was the role of the Constitutional Convention?
The convention that drafts the new Constitution arose with the aim of embodying in the new text several fundamental rights absent in the current Magna Cartainherited from the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990) and accused of being the genesis of the social unrest that has shaken the country in recent years.
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After almost 80% of Chileans were in favor of changing the current Fundamental Charter, 155 members of the body were elected to draft the new Constitution.
The body was established including criteria of parity between men and women unprecedented in the world and reservation of seats for indigenous peoples, mostly without militancy in traditional parties and progressive tendencies.
The Convention held its last voting plenary session on Saturday to define the draft that will be submitted to an exit referendum with mandatory participation for all those over 18 years of age on September 4.
What points are highlighted or criticized in the draft?Social rights
During the last weeks, in the heat of the debate in each commission, the Convention defined important advances that were embodied in the final proposal, highlighting as a turning point in the opinion of constituents and experts the definition of Chile as a “Social State of Law”.
This proposal seeks to end four decades of “subsidiary state” and with the privatization of basic services derived from the current fundamental law, harshly criticized during the wave of protests for equality at the end of 2019 -the most serious in recent decades-.
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Despite the fact that it was reformed more than 50 times in democracy, the current Chilean Constitution did not change its ultraliberal base inspired by the doctrine of the economist Miltron Friedman and the “Chicago Boys”, oriented towards the privatization of basic rights such as water, education, health and pensions.
With the vocation of leaving this regime behind, the conventional approved social rights that to date in Chile are subject to the market and the economic reality of each family nucleus: the water market is ended, a universal health system is proposed and the strengthening of public, secular and free education at all levels, in addition to freedom of association, the right to strike and the promotion of social and gender co-responsibility in domestic and care work.
In addition, the right to food, to housing, to the protection of personal data, to freedom of education -choice of parents and guardians on the type of education that their children will receive-, of professorship and of property, are included. among others.
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About the political system
Like other countries in the region, it is established that the State is multinational, recognizing autonomy of native peoples and new rights, although several of its representatives are not satisfied with the depth of the approved regulations, while indigenous genocide was not recognized. or the right to transhumance.
Among the points that have stood out the most, the draft of the new constitution recognizes the country as a “parity democracy”, for which it indicates that all “the autonomous constitutional bodies, as well as the boards of companies
public and semi-public must have a parity composition that ensures that at least fifty percent of its members are women“.
They must have a parity composition that ensures that at least fifty percent of their members are women.
Unlike, One of the most controversial points has been the elimination of the current Senate. According to the newspaper El País, this is one of the oldest institutions in the country as a Republic, since it has 200 years of history.
According to the draft, the legislative power will be made up of the Congress of Deputies and the Chamber of the Regions, which will replace the Senate and will have more limited functions than those of the body that currently functions.
The draft defines the Chamber of the Regions as “a deliberative, joint and multinational body of regional representation in charge of concurring in the formation of regional agreement laws and exercising the other powers entrusted by this Constitution.”
Other issues included in the draft, such as land restitution or plurinationality, have caused controversy among right-wing constituents, who have called the text “indigenous” and “partisan.”
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What will be the future of the new Constitution?
Now, with the mission of consolidating the coherence, clarity and technical quality of the constitutional text, the Harmonization Commission, made up of 40 conventional, must review each of the 499 regulations approved by the plenary session, identifying possible inconsistencies in the content and with powers to make only formal changes.
As of this Monday, the commission will begin its work with a maximum deadline of June 9, the date on which it must present its final report to the plenary session.
Subsequently, the final votes will take place, which could be extended until June 29, according to the official schedule, to present the text to the public on July 4.
If the text is approved in the exit plebiscite, On September 4, the new Constitution would replace the current one, inherited from the Augusto Pinochet regime.
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Is there support for the new text?
However, there is concern that the text will be rejected in the plebiscite. The alarms, both within the Constitutional Convention and in the government of the progressive Gabriel Boric, went off at the beginning of April, when three polls put figures to the reduction of confidence and For the first time, they placed the option of rejecting the new fundamental law as the winner.
“They are a wake-up call for all of us who trust in this process,” said the Chilean head of state, one of the signatories of the political agreement that gave way to the creation of the convention to contain the protests of October 2019.
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From various sectors, members of the Constituent Assembly have argued, a smear and disinformation campaign has been deployed against the deliberative space, with a prolonged debate to which Chilean society is not accustomed, not exempt from scandals that affected elected groups and forced the resignation of one of them for lying during the elections.
The right, which won 37 seats and was left without power of influence or veto in the body, accuses exclusion from some negotiations and criticizes the main proposals for the political system and rights, even promoting the design of a “third way” in case the rejection of the new constitutional text is imposed.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING*
*With information from EFE
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