On December 30, 2022, President Gabriel Boric granted a series of pardons to 12 convicted of crimes in the context of the social outbreak and to the ex-frontist Jorge Mateluna. The situation – which occurred in the middle of the negotiations by the security table – annoyed the opposition, who withdrew “indefinitely” from the instance.
Following the event, the Minister of the Interior, Carolina Tohá, has insistently called on the opposition parties to resume talks at the security table. Something that has not yet happened, for which the Secretary of State gave them an ultimatum.
In this sense, Tohá declared to TVN that “we have been given very confusing signals, because they tell me that ‘we are willing to return’, but then the parliamentarians of the different benches have differences, nuances, debates between them; that I think they are valid, but that should not affect such an important task to get this deal done.”
“We have no more time to wait, we are going to call a meeting and those who will be will sign this agreement, and those who are with internal entanglements will not sign it. The signals have been very confusing. I think there is no more room to discuss, It is necessary to close this and get to work on those priorities, establish deadlines, administrative and legislative measures so that citizens can later charge us to speak,” he added.
Reinforcing the previous point, the head of the Interior assured that this coming Monday, January 30, will be the last period available to take the instance forward. This, since throughout February the National Congress will have its legislative recess.
“Monday is the last deadline we have. On Monday we are going to convene and we are going to work with those who arrive. We are no longer going to be able to make these gestures of patient waiting anymore, because patience cannot compromise the priority of obtaining results”, stated.
Likewise, he ruled that “there is no longer any excuse, as an example, the pardons, because this is based in the Constitutional Court (TC). The Government does not have the tools to change that decision, there is no such thing as rolling back the pardons.”
