The “engine room” of politics is malfunctioning, that was the diagnosis of the Expert Commission. Chile currently has 21 political parties in Congress and there are 12 in the process of being formed that are trying to enter to contest seats in Parliament. But it is very probable that many of those 12 in training will not reach port and that others among the 21 existing ones will disappear, if the proposal of the Expert Commission is maintained. On Tuesday, in a unanimous vote, its 24 members unanimously approved the Political System proposal that would definitively end the current proportional system that encourages both political pluralism and the proliferation of parties.
The unanimous rejection of the current scenario with many political parties was supported by the lapidary preliminary diagnosis of the Political System Subcommittee of the Expert Commission, which concluded –in its month of work– that one of the great problems of the current political environment is the Absence of governability, that is to say, that elected governments have not been capable of fulfilling their political agendas for a long time because they do not have enough support in Congress. A clear example of this situation is the Government of President Boric, which has to negotiate with 21 different parties for each initiative that it presents to Parliament and each of these has a different price.
Faced with this problem, the Expert Commission, at about 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday, dealt a severe blow to this proliferation of parties and unanimously approved the proposal that defines the Political System and regulates the map of forces in the country’s Parliament. . The approved content is diametrically opposed to that of the constituent process of 2022.
Prior to the plebiscite on September 4 of last year, former minister and economist Andrés Velasco decided to vote Rejection and campaign for this option, rightly arguing that the proposal postulated “a political structure that could increase conflict, weaken certain democratic controls and make it even more difficult to make collective decisions based on future criteria”. For Velasco –current dean of the School of Public Policy at the London School of Economics–, a “serious and incomprehensible omission” was that the Constitutional Convention that was in force in 2022 dispatched a project that did not regulate political parties.
For the Expert Commission that is in session these days, the issue was a priority. In general terms, the proposal speaks of a system of large political parties that represent broad political ideas and that ends the fragmentation that exists in the current Congress. In addition, the articles contain stricter party regulation in terms of internal democracy and transparency.
Draconian legislation
Juan José Ossa (RN), the leader of the Subcommittee on the Political System, Constitutional Reform and Form of State, declares: “With pride and, although it sounds difficult, we are strengthening political parties.” This, because they are key to democracy, points out Ossa. It is necessary to strengthen them, warns the former Secretary General of the Presidency, given that “the sign of fragility in which they find themselves is what generates ungovernability.”
As for Congress, to put an end to the current atomization of the parties –that is, many small parties in the same legislative space–, the new constitutional text would require that the person elected must belong to a political party that has obtained at least 5% of the votes at the national level. A party can win a seat in its district, but could not take it if it belongs to a national political party with less than 5% of the votes at the country level. This would be an antidote to the local caciques.
In addition, to protect the strength of said groups within Congress, the law establishes that any legislator who resigns from the party for which he was elected will immediately lose his seat in Parliament. This, because lately it has become a vice to occupy the platform of a party to gain access to the Legislative and then present the resignation and declare itself independent. The commissioners say this new rule increases party discipline and cuts out the politics of wayward people.
Mauricio Morales, PhD in Political Science and academic at the University of Talca, maintains that “the Expert Commission is moving in the right direction.” A key, for Morales, are the institutional bases that were previously established, since they allow the debate to be addressed “from a structural perspective, in very specific improvements.”
The fact of mechanically attacking fragmentation in Congress is “practically eliminating the probability of success of the regional parties,” adds Morales. In addition, he explains that “it is like chemotherapy: it kills the good cells and also the bad ones.” However, he warns that regional parties “channel local interests, but in this context of ultra-fragmentation it is better to give up that benefit in exchange for greater political stability.” The political scientist believes that it is an “adequate decision”.
For her part, Antonia Rivas – the Social Convergence commissioner – values the dialogue and the diagnosis made in the subcommittee. In addition, she declares that “political parties play a fundamental role in democracy”, however, she stresses that the “problem is not multipartyism” and adds that “it is even desirable to the extent that this diversity manages to represent relevant social interests”. .
“The political parties of our country are indebted to the people,” he affirms, and maintains that, even though incentives are included in strengthening these entities, “if this is not matched in political practice, in the way in which they are debated public affairs, will come to nothing”.
Rodrigo Espinoza, current director of the Faculty of Public Administration of the Diego Portales University, considers that the proposal has more lights than shadows and the strengthening of both political parties and formulas to reduce fragmentation is key, however, he warns that these They cannot point to binomialism –since the presence of larger parties is strengthened– and become two blocs: one pro-government and the other opposition.
That point – he says – could “attempt against the representation of the political system, since in the last Congress we have seen three large blocs”. Now, he does believe that there are solutions within the institutional design, such as the establishment of closed lists, which could favor, on the one hand, great political projects and, on the other, put an end to the politics of the wayward
Among other innovations, it proposes a system of participation and direct democracy: popular law initiative and the popular law repeal initiative. “A group of people qualified to pay equivalent to two percent of the last electoral register may present to any of the branches of the National Congress a popular initiative of law for its legislative processing ”, details the norm that was presented in the report. Antonia Rivas (CS) He highlighted the initiative, since “it works as a catalyst of the will.”
For the repeal of the law, it establishes a threshold of three percent of the last electoral roll and, in addition, a time period of four months following the publication of a law to present the initiative for its total or partial repeal.
Regarding citizen participation, Ossa warns that it is a necessary change, due to how democracy is understood today, since it has changed: “Citizens dialogue directly with their authorities, but they do so in a non-institutional way. Hence, I deeply value what is being incorporated into popular law initiatives and even the repeals of the law ”, he expresses.
