Hours before four in the afternoon, when the helmsmen of Chile Vamos sent a letter to the president of the Upper House, Álvaro Elizalde (PS), Javier Macaya had lunch with the UDI senators. In the letter they warned that they would not attend the meeting scheduled for Thursday morning, which had the objective of continuing the conversations about the way in which a new Constitution will be drawn up.
There, according to attendees, Macaya asked them if the talks should be suspended for a while. The answer was yes, said a UDI senator as he left lunch.
In the letter signed by the presidents of the three parties that make up Chile Vamos –UDI, Renovación Nacional and Evópoli– they asked that the Thursday meeting be rescheduled for Friday, September 23, “in order to work on specific proposals” and that There was no government presence.
“That this instance of discussion prior to any agreement be of exclusive parliamentary participation without the presence of the Executive at this stage, in order to be able to deliberate autonomously as the National Congress,” they stated.
In private conversations, however, the opposition coalition explained that the main reasons for the cancellation were two. One was known: everyone agreed that there was really annoyance in the inmate as a result of the statements of the spokeswoman minister, Camila Vallejo, which they interpreted as a “government ruling.” The second, less explicit but deeper, was about a lack of agreement between the parties that make up Chile Vamos, especially in relation to the role that the “committee of experts” would play.
Thus, according to what they say close to the directives of the communities of Chile Vamos, the presidencies decided to freeze the talks until within the coalition they could build a proposal with “certain edges”, such as those presented by Socialismo Democrático and Frente Amplio.
From the UDI, the senators resented the little public support that –in their opinion– the other party presidents, Luz Poblete (Evópoli) and Francisco Chahuán (RN), were giving to one of the ideas that Javier Macaya has proposed.
The issue that has been promoted is that the expert council that would support the Constitutional Convention works before it is formed. The objective is for the group to delimit some topics before the conventional ones focus on the writing. Likewise, the UDI senators assured that the borders agreed by experts would only serve if they are binding, that is, that the constituents had to respect them. “If not, there is no point in continuing with this process,” they said.
This – as they explained – was to limit the work of the conventionalists and avoid “a re-founding spirit of the country”, the culprit, they stated, of the triumph of the Rejection of the proposal for a new Constitution. In these guidelines they described that they imagined that “the autonomy of certain bodies such as Congress and the Judiciary” could be protected.
The role of the committee of experts: the crossroads within Chile Vamos
“We believe, just as Senator Macaya has said, that we have to aim for an elected Convention. We are also analyzing that it has to have the support of experts, I don’t know if experts to draft the qualification of article 142 or experts in the drafting itself of the text, as proposed by (former) President Lagos and that later that text should go to a Convention”, said the head of the UDI deputies, Jorge Alessandri, on Monday.
The words were pronounced after the first meeting between the parties, developed in the former Congress in Santiago, to define the rules of the new body that will prepare a new Magna Carta proposal.
Last week, specifically on September 9, the national leadership of Evópoli issued a letter ratifying the continuity of the constituent process through a Convention. They proposed a shorter term, a smaller number of representatives, gender parity, representation of native peoples proportional to the votes received, and the support of a technical committee, which – they pointed out – would deliver “the bases of a new Constitution that gathers our constitutional history and the common minimums that we have compromised during this stage”.
However, according to parliamentarians from Chile Vamos, inside Evópoli they would not agree that the common minimums presented by a committee of experts were binding limits for future conventional agreements.
In different conversations between parliamentarians with the party helmsmen, it has been said that first the center-right coalition must seek a consensus and then continue with the negotiations with the other parties, in order to reach the next meeting between communities with “a proposal with certain borders.
One of the thousands of messages that circulated through the RN WhatsApp groups on Tuesday was from the former deputy, Tomás Fuentes. According to those who make up these spaces, Fuentes proposed that Francisco Orrego, the spokesman for Con Mi Plata No, go to a negotiation with the ruling party to arrive at a mechanism to develop a new Fundamental Charter. This signal was interpreted by some within the community as a way to “undermine the authority of Francisco Chahuán (president of the RN)”.
The discussion in Renovación Nacional is reaching such a point of deafness that even – the sources describe – the idea of calling a general council to vote again on whether or not to advance in a constituent process is being analyzed. Action that some estimated could be interpreted as another blow to Chahuán.
Within the RN benches, militants assured that there is more disorganization than in the other communities. “The bench is getting messy,” they said. They pointed out that there is no “position to defend, they are scattered.” Some explained on Tuesday that there is “a hard position, represented by senators who have made their position transparent about not electing a new Constitution, such as Carmen Gloria Aravena, Kenneth Pugh and John Castro. A stance that others see as the result of a dangerous alliance with the Republican Party, from where they seek to drag the toughest right wing in Chile Vamos to, thus, block the second constituent period before it leaves.
And there is the position of others, such as Senator Paulina Núñez, who has even assured that “we could perfectly save ourselves the plebiscite of entry.” Part of a group –it is said– that would agree, in general, with the proposal of Democratic Socialism.
The words of Camila Vallejo that caused tension in the center-right
After the meeting held this Monday in the former Congress between all the parties with political representation and the Minister of the General Secretariat of the Presidency, Ana Lya Uriarte (PS) -who attended together with the portfolio adviser, Nicolás Facuse-, the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Raúl Soto (PPD), explained that there was consensus in the drafting of a new Constitution, that the text be drafted by a 100% elected body that complies with the principle of gender parity, that this body is accompanied by a committee of experts and, finally, that this process concludes with an exit plebiscite with a mandatory vote.
However, once this alleged agreement between the opposition and the ruling party was made known, the right wing quickly decided to distance itself, summoning the government and its two coalitions – I Approve Dignity and Democratic Socialism – to avoid rushing. The truth is that, as of this announcement, there were various recriminations within Chile Vamos, where there is no specific agreement that the drafting body of the new Magna Carta be 100% elected –because they would prefer a logic of mixed Convention –.
After a few hours, in her daily words, the government spokesperson, Camila Vallejo (PC), assured that “the sum of the wills of the different parties has managed to democratically channel this new constituent process that will have an elected body, with independents, PP.OO., parity and with the support of experts”.
That the head of the General Secretariat of Government included the presence of independents and native peoples was considered, by parliamentarians from Chile Vamos, as a “tool to advance an agreement that is at the beginning of the talks”, given that these two issues are not they had been developed, according to attendees, in the meeting between parties on Monday.
The foregoing was added to what was said by the head of the Interior, Carolina Tohá (PPD), in an interview with The Mercury, where he pointed out: “I would like to dance cueca with the agreement closed, I think the country deserves it.”
As a way of taking a step back to the headlines of different media that announced a first agreement, they sent a letter, which they began to broadcast around 6:00 p.m. and where they launched harsh criticism of the “declarations of government ministers and officials of the ruling party who seek to precipitate results.” Even so, they reiterated their “strong commitment to provide the necessary means” to reach a new Constitution.
“We do not accept that they intend to impose a course of action, much less pettily twist the ongoing talks. We have attended in good faith all the instances that have summoned us, but we are concerned that we would not be receiving similar intentions in return, ”it could be read.
“Announcing agreements that have not yet been signed threatens trust and the collaborative spirit, to the point of evaluating the relevance of the paths offered. Seeking short-term goals is not consistent with the spirit that prevails in the Chile Vamos matches. We call for reflection, so that this process is transparent and responsible, in order to be up to the task that Chileans entrust to us”, they concluded.
“This double talk is very complex. It seems to me that this is what happened yesterday: the right wing spoke sincerely inside the meeting, but outside it spoke to its public, so to speak, or to the public hardest member of his coalition,” said Paulina Vodanovic, president of the Socialist Party, in a conversation with The Counter at La Clave.
“We do not sit down to dance to their rhythm, we have the music,” said a parliamentarian from Chile Vamos on Tuesday. Why? He argued that mainly due to the comfortable victory of the Rejection option for the constitutional proposal -with 61.86% of the preferences-, an unfavorable result for the Approval, the alternative for which the Government opted.
Another parliamentarian assured that saying that there was a five-point agreement was an exaggeration, and that the party presidents assured that there were rather five coincidences at the beginning of the talks. Thus, they pointed out on Tuesday that words like those of the heads of Congress and the minister created “a fictitious reality” that entangled the conversations, and that caused “the bases to feel out of hand.”