In the midst of the heated parliamentary discussion that the government’s pension and tax reforms faced this week, the president of the UDI and senator, Javier Macaya, questioned the ruling party saying: “We have had a willingness to dialogue that we demonstrated with concrete facts last November Having signed the continuity of the constituent process gives us credibility to now demand that the Government improve its ill-conceived reforms.”
With these words Macaya justified, in conversation with The counterthe critical and leading position that the parties of Chile Vamos –UDI, RN and Evópoli– are determined to assume in the legislative process and in the new constituent process.
In February, the Senate Finance Commission dispatched the tax reform project to the House Chamber and the Labor Commission approved the idea of legislating the reform of the pension system, which will begin its discussion in particular on March 31.
It is in this context that Chile Vamos will face two important tasks in the coming months: demonstrate coordination capacity as an opposition to slow down, delay or accelerate the reforms that are beginning to be discussed in Congress and, at the same time, begin work on the new constituent process by participating of the Committee of Experts, where there were controversial nominations, such as that of Hernán Larraín by the UDI.
Before this medium, he President of the UDI, Javier Macayadefended the role of his sector and pointed out that “we believe that the tax reform and that of the pension system are bad reforms, which generate problems in the economy,” he explained.
In Chile Vamos, they warn that the quality of the reforms presented and the secrecy shown by the ruling party to get them approved with as few changes as possible, is a good opportunity to arouse unity on the right and replicate what they achieved in the Rejection campaign. . The UDI helmsman assured that “we have always been willing to act as a joint opposition when there is a confluence of interests and we put Chile ahead. I believe that the Senate will be an instance to talk with all political sectors to improve the bad reforms presented by the government, otherwise the government is going to find an opposition that is going to say no to its bad reforms”.
The problem, in order to achieve this unity of the right, is that in recent history there have been several disagreements between Chile Vamos, Republicans and the People’s Party (PDG) to achieve coordination in key instances, such as the constitutional accusations against the minister Giorgio Jackson and former minister Marcela Ríos.
Regarding the new constituent process, the parliamentarian indicated that the Chile Vamos parties are interested in contributing content to the new constitutional proposal and seeking a more leading role than they had in the previous process. Macaya believes that Chile Vamos faces this stage “with the will to build a better future for Chile through dialogue, so that the excesses of the previous process are not repeated.” Regarding the differences that may arise within and outside his coalition, he pointed out that ” We must achieve the will to reach an agreement in this scenario where there are actually going to be differences within that Constitutional Council, because the challenge is to think about Chile more than how we make the electoral niche of a specific political project grow”.
Finally, Macaya maintained that his coalition has the necessary strength to compete successfully in the elections for constitutional councilors and, in this sense, he said that “we have a territorial network made up of mayors, councilors and parliamentarians who are good support in the work of any campaign. We also have very well-positioned presidential figures, such as Evelyn Matthei or Rodolfo Carter himself, who I have no doubt will collaborate in this work. We are going to compete with the rules of democracy,” the senator concluded.
