For the second time in the year and a half that he has been in administration, Chilean President Gabriel Boric has received a constitutional proposal that seeks to bury the Fundamental Charter born in the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet and reformed some 60 times. In a brief and solemn ceremony, the Constitutional Council delivered this Tuesday the text on which it has worked in recent months, in the Hall of Honor of the headquarters of the National Congress in Santiago. “Chileans will have to decide if this is a proposal that unites us,” said President Gabriel Boric in a sober speech. With this act, the document with conservative overtones now passes to the citizens, who on December 17 will vote whether they are in favor or against the proposal. The president of the council – dissolved this morning –, the Republican Beatriz Hevia, has defended that the text has the capacity to “end institutional and political uncertainty”, in closing words marked by a very critical tone towards what she defined as a “serious social crisis” that Chile is going through.
The first process, dominated by the left, ended in a fiasco in September 2022 (62% rejected the document). So far, according to the polls, voters want to overthrow the second proposal, although the plebiscite is still open and the For option is advancing. Unlike the previous process of the Constitutional Convention, this new attempt was carried out in a much more discreet manner, with a citizenry disinterested and tired after four years of elections and debates around the Magna Carta. A thermometer of that disaffection was seen this morning in the streets surrounding the Congress headquarters in Santiago. Last year, when the drafting body delivered its proposal to President Boric, there was a festive atmosphere outside the building. Feminists gathered, waving Approve flags and protesters who remembered those detained in the 2019 social uprisings. In addition, copies of the proposal were distributed and left-wing constituents took photos with citizens, who asked them to sign their texts. , although none of that was reflected at the polls given the forcefulness of the defeat of that bet.
This Tuesday there was none of that. Neither curious citizens nor protesters. Not even the printed proposal. Yes, they distributed a plastic card with a QR code to access the document.
After receiving the constitutional text, Boric pointed out that each citizen “will have to consider how this constitutional text will allow us to address the great issues of Chile, the challenges we have in terms of health, education, pensions, work, social security. , the environment, advances in women’s rights, the development model, natural resources, political institutions, the strengthening of our democracy, the integration of our cultural diversity.” “Above all,” he added, “Chileans will have to decide if this is a proposal that unites us.”
Although Boric and his ministers have tried not to openly reveal their position – although it is evident that they are against it – it was a sign that they will be in favor of rejection, as the left-wing parties and the ruling party in general have announced.
The new Constitution proposal has been classified by the left as identity-based and dogmatic. Among the main points criticized is that, although the social State was enshrined in the text, which has been its historical aspiration, several articles leave the definition “empty.” The right-wing parties also managed to maintain in the proposal the subsidiary State model, implicit in the current Fundamental Charter, and which ratifies a key role for the private sector in the provision of social rights, such as in the pension and health system. Another approved norm is added that states that “the law protects the life of the unborn”, one of the most complex for this sector that foresees that it could collide with the three-cause abortion law that has been in force since 2017 in Chile.
Regarding the results of the next plebiscite, Boric confirmed that the Government will give all the guarantees to implement the new text if it is approved and, if it is rejected, he made no mention of a third process. “In the event that the proposal that you give us today for a new Constitution is approved, there is no doubt that, as a Government, we will fully comply with its correct implementation and installation and we will take charge, as appropriate, together with the other bodies of the State, of the process of legal reforms and regulatory adaptations that will be required.” Likewise, he added that, if the opposite result occurs, the Government “will dedicate itself without pause and with great energy to continuing working and governing for the well-being of the people.”
The ceremony began after 8:45 in the morning with a speech by the representative of the Republican Party, lawyer Beatriz Hevia, who did not hide the gaze of her party on the moment that Chile is experiencing. “Beyond any political difference, it is urgent to understand that true Chileans, honest and peaceful Chileans, those of work, long with hope, perhaps without knowing it, for this constitutional process to be closed,” Hevia said, citing an old publication of a newspaper from northern Chile, which generated rejection from the ruling party, critics of the mention of “true Chileans”, interpreted as meaning that there are some who are not. “This proposal is structured on the fundamental and necessary bases to establish the principles and values that must guide and guide the political, economic and legal system (…) where the person comes first and the State is at their service,” added Hevia, before the absolute attention of Boric, who, with a serious face, did not allow distractions during the almost 20-minute intervention of the Republican.
Counselor Hevia spoke of a “moral and social crisis of proportions” that, in her opinion, the country faces and compared this process with the previous one, which she described as “sad spectacle.” “We carried out a serious, sober and republican process in the broadest sense of the word.” And she added: “It has the ability to end institutional and political uncertainty, strengthening the rule of law and legal certainty.”
The drafting of this second text lasted eight months and began with the installation of an Expert Committee appointed by the Congress of Chile and made up of 12 people, representatives of different political parties with representation in Congress. This body gave birth to a transversally supported draft, which was then worked on by the 50 members of the Constitutional Council, elected by the citizens on May 7, in which the right had the three-fifths necessary to approve the new articles and the Party Republican. The president of the Expert Committee, Verónica Undurraga, from the center-left, told EL PAÍS that the Constitutional Council “lacked lucidity.” “Unfortunately, I think we lost sight of the purpose of the constitutional process, which is to achieve a Constitution that unites Chileans, that establishes the bases of our new social pact. That was the purpose of one that united us, but unfortunately here other rather electoral objectives were mixed and that distorted the result.”
Two months before the plebiscite, whose campaign officially begins today, various polls show that the new text has not managed to win over the Chilean population: the option Against surpasses the alternative In favor of the new text: 50% against 35%, according to the latest Cadem Public Square survey. Although there are still 15% who have not defined their vote. If the forecast of the polls is fulfilled, and Chile fails to give birth to a new Constitution, the current Fundamental Charter will continue to govern: there is no political will in any of the political sectors to try a third attempt, except for some Party leaders. Communist, like Mayor Daniel Jadue.
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