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The Chilean Constituent Assembly reached an agreement to approve one of the most controversial articles of the Assembly: to put an end to the institution of the Senate that has been in office for 200 years. The idea is to create a new Chamber of Regions to replace it. The conservatives, a minority in the Constituent Assembly, disagree.
The Constituent Assembly of Chile, in a marathon session, voted to close the country’s Senate, which had been in operation for 200 years, to replace it with a new “Chamber of Regions” that would be an alternative “joint and multinational body of regional representation, in charge of attending the formation of regional agreement laws”, according to the text.
This idea, one of the most controversial in the current Assembly and which passed with 104 votes in favor, 42 against and 6 abstentions, is one of the key proposals of the Chilean left, of majorities in the Constituent Assembly, which brand bicameralism and the current Senate from stalling and stopping progress and laws.
This new agreement came after the publication of polls that show that people have lost faith in the process of creating the new Magna Carta, due to infighting and extreme proposals from constituents.
“This is a very complex, very technical issue,” said Rosa Catrileo, a constituent and coordinator of the commission. “It is a challenge, we have little time, but we are still on time,” she concluded.
The opponents came forward, saying that the proposal gives too much power to the Chamber of Deputies, it would excessively centralize decision-making and that “the regions would not have a voice in matters of health, pensions, transportation or education,” he said. in the Assembly in full the conservative deputy, Hernán Larraín.
Despite obtaining the majority, the article that defines its powers failed and will now return to the commission for a new debate and another vote. In addition, the functions of the new entity and the scope of the laws it promulgates are yet to be defined.
The commission’s coordinating constituent, Ricardo Montero, said that the commission will rework the agreement to get more support, and assured that they are “concerned about some of the articles that failed.”
One proposal that did not pass the plenary session was to change the current Chamber of Deputies into a “Deliberative and Plurinational Congress of Deputies” that would have the power to legislate, in addition to supervising the President of the Republic.
The Assembly has until May 17 to approve the articles that will later be delivered to a commission in charge of reviewing and polishing the document. After this process, the final text of the new Chilean Constitution will be submitted to a referendum on September 4.
The new Constitution as an agent of change
The Constituent Assembly was born as a response from the Piñera government to try to avert the political crisis that the South American country experienced in 2019, when a wave of massive protests took over the streets of Santiago and the emblematic Plaza Italia for months.
The demonstrations left some 30 dead and thousands injured, in addition to reports of abuse by the police who confronted dissatisfied citizens with rubber bullets, tear gas and tanks that fired pressurized water.
The trigger for the social outbreak was the approval of a rise in the capital’s subway fares.
The current Constitution in Chile, which would be repealed by the one written by the current Constituent Assembly, was drafted under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, who was in power between 1973 and 1990. This Neoliberal Magna Carta is considered the mother of great inequalities experienced by the Andean country of the South Pacific.
with local media
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