The president of Chile, Gabriel Boric, will receive on Monday in a ceremony the proposal for a new constitutiona text that, although it includes social rights claimed in the streets, also added controversy in a process that has not managed to correct social fragmentation.
(Read here: Chile: why is President Gabriel Boric’s popularity plummeting?)
At the headquarters of the Congress in Santiago, Boric will receive the text and the Constitutional Convention made up of 154 members, parity and with reserved indigenous seats, will be dissolved, which began its work on July 4, 2021 to draft a new Magna Carta that replaces the current, in force since the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990).
(See here: Chile: Boric creates a ministerial cabinet on behalf of his partner)
satisfied communists
next september 4in a plebiscite with compulsory suffrage, more than 15 million Chileans must vote “I approve” or “Reject” this text of 388 articles, which includes a new ‘Catalogue of social rights’ and that seeks to establish a plurinational, intercultural and ecological Chile, with a new political and judicial order.
“I believe that we fulfilled the social demands, with the desires of the citizens, what the people expected and wanted from this process,” Bárbara Sepúlveda, a member of the Communist Party, told AFP.
“It is a proposal that constitutes a historic advance in democracy and a guarantee of social rights for our country, and that is also steeped in feminism from end to end,” said Alondra Carrillo, from the Broad Front.
center and right criticism
For Fuad Chaín, the only representative in the Convention of the Christian Democratic Party (center), the “text fails” by generating legal uncertainty that will cause “a brake” on the economy, which will prevent the creation of new health, pension and education systems. .
The drafting of this new Constitution sought to channel the violent protests that exploded in Chile from October 2019, demanding greater social equality.
Cristian Monckeberg, a right-wing conventionalist – who held only 37 of the 154 seats in the Convention, without the possibility of vetoing the regulations that had to be approved by two thirds – considers that “the constituent process was wasted and (the possibility) of having built something that unites and does not divide” the country.
tensions and scars
“It wasn’t as simple and friendly as many of us would have wanted and dreamed of. No, because the tensions were stronger,” said the writer and independent writer Patricio Fernández.
“The healings are longer than the simple will,” added Fernández, about the fights between conventionalists that marked the year of work, together with an active disinformation campaign around the draft regulations.
The unprecedented political composition of the Convention -with a minority right-wing- gave the independents a fundamental role, with a total of 104 representatives, mostly linked to the left.
“The united people, advance without parties,” shouted a group of conventionalists, at the end of the last vote on Tuesday, arousing anger and reproaches from analysts, intellectuals and historians, who saw in that song a divisive and revengeful tone of the left. more radical.
“Until the last day we tried to build bridges of dialogue, but they were not heard, they were not collected,” lamented the right-wing Monckeberg.
But the two-thirds necessary to approve the norms ended up imposing moderation and constructing a text that, if approved, will put Chile at the forefront on various issues, such as the right to abortion.
avant-garde constitution
“This Constitution is from another era. I am totally convinced that if the Approval wins when this process is viewed from a distance (…) it will be seen with much more affection and admiration than what we see today,” says Fernández.
“A good part of the eccentricities, tantrums and bombast are not going to be seen and what is going to be seen is the effort to start a democratic process like never before,” added the writer. The Convention also innovated by being joint.
Seventy-seven men and the same number of women drafted the text, which also included 17 indigenous seats for the first time, to settle an old debt with the original peoples, especially the Mapuche.
“It is the most democratic space that we have known throughout this country,” highlights the lawyer and Mapuche conventionalist Natividad Llanquileo. The text recognizes the concept of plurinationality and grants indigenous people certain autonomy, especially in justice.
Looking ahead to the September plebiscite, most polls give the “Rejection” an advantage, but at a time when the final text has not yet been released in its entirety and citizens acknowledge feeling confused. “Not everything is wonderful in this proposal, but it’s not all bad either,” admits Fuad Chaín.
AFP
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