After eight months of work Constitutional Council this Monday ratified the new Chilean Magna Carta. conservative content, and the subject of strong debate between his supporters and the president’s left-wing government Gabriel Boric. The text will be submitted to an institution popular consultation next 17 December. “The polls don’t seem to predict success.”The die is cast “And now political forces will begin to mobilize for and against options,” the El Mostrador portal said. final setbacks in rights“.
Initiative supported Republicans, far-right force, and more moderate varieties of the right that meet in Vamos, Chile. Their 33 votes were more than enough to advance the constitutional project. Predictably, 17 councilors from the left and centre-left, who do not have veto power, voted against it. Boric will receive the text on November 7.
About second constitutional process crossed this country in two years. The first, progressive in nature, the result of the social epidemic in October 2019, ended with a resounding rejection by voters at the polls in September 2022. The conservative wave continued until May, when new councilors were elected, responsible for discussing and ultimately improving the draft written by the Committee of Experts. match José Antonio Kast It was the power that received the most votes and left its mark on the discussions.
“To get out of the constitutional trance we have been in for almost four years, I promised that I would not approve any text, but that I would do it if we could build something better. Today I can do this. We state with great confidence that we have achieved this goal.” said. President of the Constitutional Council, Young far-right activist Beatriz Hevia.
mixed opinions
Here’s what the Republican representative sees as success: a major political defeat by left forces and representatives of civil society. Among the most questioned articles “The right to life of the unborn child“, immediate deportation of immigrants who enter without permission and tax exemption for the first home, which would benefit people with higher incomes. Despite the initial commitment, the legal figure rule of law It was completely diluted. environmental protection This is not a goal of the Constitution either. The head of the Republican delegation, Luis Silva, a member of Opus Dei, had shamelessly admitted days ago that the voted constitutional proposal was “more compatible” with the current spectrum. “from center to right”.
Quoted by Ivonne Mangelsdorff, National Renewal (RN) Margaret Thatcher To attack the Communist Party, a strong opponent of the text: “When the Communist speaks, he lies. When he is silent, he hides. When he holds power, he steals and oppresses those who think differently than he does.”
“Unfortunately, the proposal does not allow us to say that we have fulfilled the aim of a Constitution that embraces us all. My sadness today does not make me forget the successes we reflected in the preliminary project.“Verónica Undurraga, president of the Expert Commission, said the following about the last part of the 216 articles and 62 transitional provisions.
According to constitutional expert Javier Couso from Diego Portales University (Chile), the emerging Magna Carta “It deepens the aspects that the Constitution of the 80s already has”later encouraged by the dictator Augusto Pinochet“Like a commitment to a neoconservative ideology in the economic sphere and a commitment to a conservative morality in the cultural sphere.”
Rejection from the left
“They chose to impose a privileged, dogmatic, backward-looking and polarized text“This agreement represents the risk of political and social instability precisely because it excludes other democratic ideas from the democratic sphere and, as the name suggests, only sides with businessmen and the powerful, always the privileged,” he said. socialist senator Alejandro Kohler. He voted against, citing the memory of Salvador Allende. The president of that party, Paulina Vodanovic, exercised her right to be ironic: “There are those who are carried away by doctrinal, political and ideological pleasures“Senator and president of the PPD (center-left), Jaime Quintana, pointed out that there is a Constitution that is “further to the right” of the matrix inherited from the military regime”“This could be the trigger for a new social epidemic, even larger than the one in 2019.”
According to the latest survey by Plaza Pública Cadem 34 percent of Chileans would approve new Magna Cartaduring 51 percent reject. The most striking point in the survey is that 58 percent of those interviewed do not agree with starting a new founding process if this new proposal is stopped at the ballot box. “For” supporters believe that the negative situation in the polls will reverse as December 17 approaches.