Santiago de Chile (EFE) second phase of a political process marked by the majority rejecting the previous proposal.
Although the body that Chileans will have to set up through the polls will be equal, this second attempt to prepare a magna charge has profound differences with the previous one, with a Committee of Experts that inaugurated its work this week and whose purpose is to define a draft that serves as the basis for the Council’s work.
five covenants
For two months, with a deadline until Thursday May 4, 350 candidates will seek to enter the Constitutional Council, divided into five electoral lists where both the government and opposition forces will run divided.
The Chilean ruling party signed two pacts for the elections and ruled out the possibility of presenting all progressivism united under the same acronym.
The political forces of the government coalition agreed to run in the elections, on the one hand, with the “Todo por Chile” pact, which brings together the forces of the traditional center-left, except the Socialist Party (PS), and on the other “Unity for Chile”, which includes the left-wing Frente Amplio coalition, to which President Gabriel Boric belongs, the Communist Party and, as the main novelty, the Socialists.
In the other lane, the opposition will keep intact the pact of the right-wing coalition Chile Vamos, which for the elections of constitutional councilors they baptized as “Chile Seguro”. Conservatives will run separately from the far-right Republican Party.
A fifth list will be led by the People’s Party (PDG), an organization whose representative Franco Parisi obtained a surprising third place in the last presidential elections without even stepping foot in the country and which during the last parliamentary term has imploded into a deep crisis over lack of political and ideological definitions, manifesting multiple internal breakdowns.
The committee of experts for the new Constitution
This new constituent process started last Monday with the installation of the committee of experts appointed by Parliament, whose task is to prepare a draft of a new Constitution that will serve as a basis for the councilors who will be elected next May at the polls.
The 24 experts, of which 12 were chosen by the Chamber of Deputies and 12 by the Senate, took office in the building of the old Santiago Congress in a sober ceremony that coexists with the lack of expectations and citizen interest that awakens this second constituent attempt.
The body, which is made up of several veteran figures of Chilean politics, has three months to write the preliminary draft of the Fundamental Charter and deliver it to the 50 councilors who will prepare the final proposal that could replace the one inherited by the military dictatorship (1973-1990).
After the elections on May 7, the Constitutional Council will have up to five months to prepare the text proposal that will then be submitted to a plebiscite by the citizens, in a universal and compulsory vote.
Despite the rejection of 62% in the September plebiscite, there is a consensus on the need to replace the current Constitution.