This Monday, September 9, the candidate for National Prosecutor, Ángel Valencia, will arrive in the Senate to appear before the Upper House, in the midst of a rarefied environment, with a Government with no margin for error, which will try to add the necessary support to avoid a third consecutive defeat, after the failures in the candidacies of José Morales and Marta Herrera. But the name of Valencia as the Executive’s letter to lead the Public Ministry caused surprise and discomfort in a part of the pro-government senators, due to their ties to the political world and their controversial client history, which includes accused and convicted for sexual offenses against women. But even in a sector of the right there have been objections to the process of his nomination, which increases the spirit of uncertainty around the choice of lawyer.
In this context, critical voices have arisen around the way in which Juan Agustín Meléndez was finally nominated for Valencia over the National Final (s), who was until this Wednesday the favorite card in the Senate, thus leaving without floor to the ministers of Justice, Marcela Ríos, and of Segpres, Ana Lya Uriarte. One of the parliamentarians who has been critical of this appointment is Senator Iván Flores (DC), who assured that the Government’s announcement was not received with applause in the Upper House, and warned that it would be “serious and painful” if all this be justified by an eventual negotiation between the Executive branch and parliamentarians from Chile Vamos, to avoid constitutional charges against ministers Marcela Ríos and Giorgio Jackson.
But the parliamentarian for the Los Ríos Region went further, and harshly criticized President Gabriel Boric, who wondered “What are they playing at?”, referring to the senators who have publicly threatened to reject their candidate . In this regard, Flores assured that “the Senate does not play and I hope that the government does not continue to play either,” warning that “this is not KidZania, where they play to be ministers or to lead the country.” In this sense, he questioned the work of the second floor of the Moneda, since in his opinion, “it seems that there are no ones who advise the President regarding what he can and should not say as a President of the Republic.
-Have you decided your vote for the plenary session this Monday? Considering the criticism of his political ties -both with the right and with pro-government politicians-, and his questioned record of clients, do you think that Ángel Valencia is the right candidate to head the National Prosecutor’s Office?
-I want to be consistent with what I think, with what I say and with what I do. I did it with Mr. Morales, about whom I had no great expectations, as a result of what had appeared in the press and what he had read, and his presentation did not convince me at all, and I voted against it. With Mrs. Herrera, I knew his work history and his presentation, which was clear and forceful, convinced me and I voted in favor. With Mr. Valencia, despite the fact that I have some apprehensions, because of what has been appearing in the press, because of his political ties and because of what in my opinion may be conflicts of interest, however, I am going to listen without prejudices, and based on what he exposes and his work plan, I am going to vote, exactly as I did in the two previous cases.
-What do you think about Valencia’s nomination process? Is it a name that caused surprise and stinging in senators from the ruling party? Do you think that the ministers Marcela Ríos and Ana Lya Uriarte were left homeless after President Boric’s decision?
-Here there is no assumption, these are objective facts. On this occasion, the ministers (Ríos and Uriarte) did their job and talked, if not with everyone, with a majority of senators, because it was precisely a matter of collecting opinions and being able to talk. And I understand that, indeed, we were talking about close to forty votes for Meléndez, far above 2/3. Not so Valencia, which was attracting around twenty-odd votes. Everything indicated that Meléndez was the candidate, and so we assumed it from different political sectors, so this determination was extremely surprising for the ruling party. I am not interpreting it, I saw it, I spoke with fellow pro-government senators from different parties, and they were all not only surprised, but also upset, by this turn that the government is making.
– Do you consider that this nomination was a risky move for the Government? How much of your political capital and credibility is at stake in this Monday’s vote? Could this eventual negotiation of La Moneda with Chile Vamos, jeopardize the support of its support base in Approve Dignity?
-By the way, it’s a risky move, but I imagine that in an analysis of medium intelligence they could have taken all the accounts for and against that decision. As I suppose, that there was an agreement here with the hard right, since UDI representatives have already announced that they plan to get rid of the constitutional accusations, I imagine then that the Government will now look for other ways of negotiating with one sector or another. But the truth is that I only know that we senators have independence because we are a different power, and although there are some political ties, nothing obliges us, and on Monday we are going to make a decision.
-What are your objections to the way in which President Boric has faced the election of National Prosecutor? How do you also observe the way in which the President has defended his decision to pardon 12 convicted of violence during the social outbreak, and a former frontist?
-At the end of the day, I don’t care about the name of the candidate for National Prosecutor. What matters to me is that the persecuting body effectively puts a stop to and puts a stop to this unleashed crime. But when we have a President of the Republic, who not only commits formal errors, but also substantive errors, such as pardoning what he said was a young urban fighter, who was involved in the outbreak of social unrest , and that in his opinion he was unjustly imprisoned, but that he turned out to be a criminal with 27 cases and 6 convictions.
Or in the case of Mr. Mateluna, where the Government will probably face the Constitutional Court, because this man had already been pardoned before, and it turns out that when it interprets the Supreme Court ruling, the Supreme Court goes out to clarify to the President what is his role as administrator of the State, and then the Prosecutor’s Office, in a forceful way, shows him that Mr. Mateluna had been caught in the act with weapons of war and with a quasi-crime of homicide, among other rulings to his credit. So here we are not talking about white doves, and if the President has personal commitments, that he pardons and assumes responsibility for him, but that he does not go out and give explanations, that what they do is dirty the other powers of the State.
-“What are they playing at?” President Boric wondered, alluding to the parliamentarians who have been expressing their objections to the nomination of Ángel Valencia. Do you consider the President’s words unfortunate? Could he have an impact on a hitherto complex relationship between the two powers of the State?
-Precisely, the President said this Thursday morning, regarding the doubts of his candidate, that we were playing in the Senate. So I remind the President that we are not playing, that crime is real, the problems of the police are real, and we are not playing, unless he believes that Chile is KidZania, where they play to be ministers and lead the country. But the truth is that we are not KidZania, we are very far from that.
