For not reaching the required quorum, the Senate rejected the name of Jose Morales to be the next National Prosecutor, becoming the first name in history to be proposed by the Executive for said position that is not ratified. A hard blow both for Morales and for the Government of President Gabriel Boric, who despite the work of the ministers Ana Lya Uriarte (Segpres) and Marcela Ríos (Justicia) to capture votes, failed to align all his parliamentary bench, with several off-hooks.
Morales, chief deputy prosecutor of the Santiago Norte Local Prosecutor’s Office and who had already tried -unsuccessfully- to be a National Prosecutor before, obtained 31 votes in favor, 6 against and 8 abstentions. However, for the name chosen by President Gabriel Boric -from a quina proposed by the Supreme Court- to be ratified, 33 votes were required. The votes against were from parliamentarians from the Christian Democracy (DC), National Renewal (RN), the Green Social Regionalist Front (FRVS) and independents. In the Chamber there were several absentees, those who did not request constitutional permission, which prevented lowering the ratification quorum of two thirds.
The name of Morales -who obtained 17 votes in the Supreme Court- was resisted by a group of senators, who questioned his actions in cases involving powerful figures, because he “buried” them to delay them, so in the internal they called him the “gravedigger.” It happened with the Cascadas case, with the Collusion of Pharmacies, with the bribery of LATAM in Argentina -when former President Piñera was a majority shareholder- and today it happens in human rights causes.
It may interest you:
However, the Government opted for him -and not for other candidates such as Carlos Palma, Aysén regional prosecutor- because in a previous survey carried out by both the ministers Ana Lya Uriarte (Segpres) and Marcela Ríos (Justicia) his name generated broad consensus, or at least the necessary one for his name to be ratified. This did not occur, so it became another defeat for the Boric administration.
In the senators’ speeches, among other reasons, they argued this situation to justify their rejection of the appointment. One of those was the independent senator Karim Bianchiwho affirmed that “there are some here who have endorsed the illegal financing of politics and support Morales. And that makes me doubt. I do not want an insurance policy with a vote. What President Boric wanted to do is avoid a political failure, and spoke with the UDI. Not even the best ‘gravedigger’ has been able to bury the binomial system”.
another senator, Francisco Huenchumilla (DC)supported Morales but said that the Senate must evaluate “the political capacity” of the candidate.
The UDI Senator David Sandoval He was one of the few in the opposition who rejected Morales, unlike his bench, arguing against the government’s performance to capture votes, criticizing the ministers in passing. “That speaks of the desperation that is acquired in the face of a decision as relevant as this. It should never have come here. This is a failure of the government. My bench has insisted on me, but given the situation, it is better to stress the system and if my vote It means not electing Mr. Morales because of these balances that exist, I think it is worth generating tension in the Public Ministry, in the Government and promoting, if so, the pertinent changes,” he added.
In this way, the law mandates that the original quina -now without Morales- return to where it originated: the Supreme Court. Here they will have to complete the 5 candidates with one of the 12 who did not make it to the starting five. After that, President Gabriel Boric is officiated to choose a name again, which has to go through the final filter of the Senate again.
