First modification:
As stipulated, the body that is in the process of preparing a new Magna Carta will carry out the change of president. Meanwhile, the project that they must present before the middle of the year to reform the documents inherited from the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship, one of the most important requests of the protests that took place in the 2019 protests, is underway.
This Tuesday, the Constituent Convention that will draft the new Magna Carta of Chile resumed its work, ending the mandate of the Mapuche academic Elisa Loncón and Professor Jaime Bassa, who are the president and vice president, respectively, since the beginning of the work of the agency in June 2021.
This decision was previously stipulated, although the new authorities of the organization have not yet been confirmed. Loncón and Bassa were elected by the 155 constituents, who will now have to erect a new board of directors to finish the job.
Among the figures with the most possibilities to assume the new presidency of the constituent are the former presidential candidate Beatriz Sánchez; the scientist Cristina Dorador; the former socialist mayor Ramona Reyes; and freelance journalist Patricia Politzer. If so, the mandate would remain in the hands of a woman, in the middle of the first joint Constituent Convention in the world.
Today we officially bid farewell, with affection and admiration, to the outgoing table. We thank you for your hard work and your enormous dedication during this period 🙌
Now, we welcome this new stage with hope and we continue on the path to have a #NewConstitution 💪 pic.twitter.com/hynnJ4p3il– Chile Convention (@convencioncl) January 4, 2022
In these first six months, the constituents have concentrated on preparing the operating regulations and designing the different thematic commissions. Recently, they began the substantive debate on the constitutional articles, something that Loncón affirms has been a “long road and not free of difficulties.”
The new text should be ready by mid-2022. If the modifications are adopted, the country’s president, Gabriel Boric, will have to call a referendum to settle the new Constitution. In fact, this is anticipated as one of the great challenges in his first year in office. The leftist visited the Convention after his victory at the polls as a gesture of support. “I do not expect a partisan Convention, at the service of our government,” he indicated.
Beyond finalizing the articles to be modified or added, in this second stage a great capacity for political dialogue will be necessary, since for the variants to be approved, two thirds of the chamber must give the go-ahead. That is, 104 seats.
The path of the Convention in its first six months
After being one of the most recurrent demands of the protesters during their 2019 protests, the Constitutional Convention was launched to carry out – independently – a project to form a new Magna Carta.
And this was one of the demands that caused social tensions in Chile at the end of 2019, since the current Constitution was drawn up in the dictatorship headed by Augusto Pinochet between 1973-1990 and has a neoliberal tendency.
However, the birth of this organism was not easy. Although it came into operation in 2021, its creation was announced in 2020 within a framework of restrictions of the pandemic within the compound, but with clashes between civilians and police in the streets on a day where all eyes were on what would happen. in the National Congress.
Finally, the one chosen to head the first half of the convention process was Loncón, a Mapuche academic – the majority ethnic group in Chile. His figure became historical after giving his assumption speech in the Mapadungún language and wearing traditional clothes. “I want to thank all the people of Chile for voting for a Mapuche person and woman to change the history of the country,” he said.
The activist’s image traveled the world and was mentioned by ‘Time’ magazine as one of the most influential personalities in the world in the last year.
The constituent process was taken by the political forces as the best way to appease the social outbreak of 2019, the most serious since the return of democracy. More than 30 people died, thousands were injured and security units were targeted for violating human rights.
With EFE
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