Former President Michelle Bachelet said on Tuesday that she was available to contribute to the new constituent process – enabled after the “Agreement for Chile” – but qualified that the role of former presidents should be one of consultation and not of “experts.”
“My party (PS) has asked me to contribute as former president of the republic, obviously one is available to contribute, but in what way is the question that I will decide in the future,” Bachelet said at the launch of the book “Profession: soldier. Notes of a general of the Chilean Army”, by Guillermo Pickering Vasquez.
You may also like:
Despite being willing to contribute, the ex-president qualified: “I think that we ex-presidents should, as we did in the previous process, rather than be experts than writing a Constitution or something like that, be able to be consulted and give opinions, I think that should be the role of former presidents and not being experts. That’s my personal opinion.”
“In the future I will say what is the best way to contribute, but we are also in a democracy that needs new faces, new voices, new ideas, I am always willing to contribute, but new people are needed,” he added.
Let us remember that the PS had asked Bachelet to participate in the new constituent process. From the former president’s office they responded that he “will evaluate it in due course.”
“Learn from the lessons of the past”
Regarding the constituent agreement, the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed that “it is a tremendous opportunity that we can learn from the lessons of the past and see how we continue to perfect and improve our democracy and respect for human rights. And that the new Constitution that is a common base, must carry these components very strongly”.
“In this sense, I think that both the draft reform of the Constitution that will define this Council of Experts (this body is called the Expert Commission) and, by the way, later the direct election of constituents, will be key,” he added.
In addition, he pointed out that “the new constitutional text should allow us to recover our republican tradition of apolitism of the armed forces, reaffirm its non-deliberative character, but also deepen the mechanisms of transparency, control and civil subjection. It must consecrate with radical force the validity of human rights as an ethical minimum of our society to ensure freedom and dignity”.
