This Friday a new meeting of the dialogue table for a new Constitution ended without agreement, after the ruling party did not have the support of the right regarding its counterproposal on the electoral mechanism to have a new drafting body. Until now, the number of members of the constituent body remains the main knot that prevents consensus, because while the government parties and the DC propose a body made up of 90 members plus nine reserved seats, the Opposition proposes a body made up of 50 people elected by the electoral formula of Congress.
The meetings will continue over the next few days, with the aim of accelerating the negotiation process, which has been trapped and extended for more than two months, assuming it as a problem that the Government hopes to solve promptly. This is how the main conveners of him understand it: the president of the Senate, Álvaro Elizalde, who hopes to attribute an agreement on constitutional matters as a medal to show off in his last stage in the front of the Upper House; and a rookie Vlado Mirosevic, who is just joining the instance, after recently assuming the Presidency of the Chamber of Deputies and Deputies, in the midst of a hostile climate.
Despite the high expectations of the government alliance prior to the socialization of its proposal for a constituent mechanism, the draft of which was able to be drawn up in accordance with the DC, and which proposes a commission of experts to prepare as of January 2023 a text not binding for constitutional discussion, a council 100% elected by compulsory vote with members of parties or coalitions that include independents. All this in a process that, according to official calculations, should conclude with the promulgation of the new Fundamental Charter at the end of 2023.
In this regard, President Gabriel Boric said this Saturday that “the important thing in this matter is that we all understand that Chile requires better social cohesion and, therefore, we need a new Constitution (…) Congress is negotiating the mechanisms to arrive at that new Constitution, which is the desire of the majority of Chile”. In turn, the President added that “I hope this agreement does not continue to be delayed, because those who legitimately campaigned for the Rejection but promising a new Constitution, it is important that they take charge of that promise.”
But despite not having the support of the right, presidents of the Socialismo Democrático and Apruebo Dignidad parties, were optimistic in favor of the correct passage of the negotiation. On the one hand, the official spokesperson and president of the PS, Paulina Vodanovic, states that they are in a position “to talk and make positions more flexible” because they understand that “the end is much more important than the form or the means.” In turn, the senator and helmsman of the Democratic Revolution, Juan Ignacio Latorre, acknowledges that the government parties are willing to “give in even to introduce mixed modalities with experts and elected officials.”
In this sense, one of the intransigent definitions of the government alliance with the DC was to reject the proposal of Chile Vamos to establish a body of 50 people elected with the electoral formula of the Senate. It is a floor that the ruling party is not willing to compromise, understanding that from its original proposal of 130 members, they dropped to 100 people. The location, now, is for the opposition parties to make them more flexible on this point, the one that until now entered the negotiation.
In the absence of elucidating the composition and design of the constituent body – whose discussion could extend for several days – from the negotiating table they recognize that there would be a consensus in relation to the Expert Commission, which would be equal and would be made up of 32 members, who would be proposed by the Chamber of Deputies and Deputies and ratified in the Senate, in both cases by a quorum of 3/5. It will then be in the next few days that the pro-government efforts will be focused on summoning the necessary wills to advance towards a political agreement on constituent matters, a task at this point that is immeasurable for the Government of President Gabriel Boric.
