Santiago de Chile (EFE).- The president of Chile, Gabriel Boric, said that the country does not want “a partisan Constitution” and he was confident that the constitutional council that will be installed next week “will seek to achieve a proposal magna) that can be embraced as its own by a wide majority”.
“We do not want a partisan Constitution, but rather an inclusive Constitution that welcomes free democratic play, that promotes agreements, that speeds up decisions so as not to continue postponing reforms that are urgent for citizens,” Boric said before Parliament in his second public account. in which he took stock of his 15 months in office.
The new constituent process in which Chile is immersed arose as a result of the plebiscite on September 4. When 62% of citizens rejected the first proposal for a Constitution. He proposed a radical change to the Chilean institutional framework, drawn up by a convention with a majority of the left.
Inauguration on June 7
The composition of the new body is completely different from the previous one and, in the May 7 elections, the ultra-right won 23 of the 51 seats, which gives it the power to veto constitutional norms.
The ruling party only got 12 seats and the traditional right of Chile Vamos got 11 councillors.
The last seat is for a Mapuche activist elected in the quota reserved for indigenous peoples. While the center-left parties that governed during the transition to democracy were left out of the body.
“I am confident that a proposal will be sought that can be embraced as theirs by a vast majority of Chilean men and women, in such a way that we can close this page and have basic certainty to develop our lives and businesses,” said the president. .
The 51 councilors will take office on June 7 and will have five months to work on a draft draft written by a group of experts appointed by Congress.
the new constitution
The bill includes 12 basic principles previously agreed upon by the parties to avoid a refounding proposal, like the one rejected by the majority in September.
Boric, in favor of changing the current Constitution inherited from the military dictatorship (1973-1990), campaigned in favor of the first proposal, but recognized the error after the failure in the plebiscite.
The previous convention, he acknowledged, “did not endorse the need for a meeting, for unity, for understanding that Chilean men and women needed, generating a climate of reciprocal intolerance and confrontations that ended in the rejection of the proposal that emanated from it.” .
“In retrospect -he added- we should have been more firm and promoted and demanded greater dialogue and transversal consensus, both within the convention and with respect to it with society.”
The two constituent processes, that of 2022 and the current one, arose after the social outbreak of 2019. The largest protests since the end of the dictatorship, which left some thirty dead and thousands injured.