These weeks have been marked by an acceleration and disorder of political contingencies, although also with signs of rationality and a search for understanding. This implies positive things, but also disturbing elements, which prevent a path of rationality and dialogue from being established, which allows governability in a difficult scenario.
Among the positive events is the concretion of a dialogue between the opposition and the Government, to give way to the new constitutional process. Although important aspects remain to be defined – many of them within the political shops themselves – its final results should surpass the failed experience of the 2022 Constitutional Convention.
But irresponsibility, carelessness and political bungling, in which there is a lot of inexperience and maximalism on the part of the Government, have bogged down and distorted important issues and decisions.
A paradigmatic and worrisome case was the process of appointing Ángel Valencia Vásquez as the new National Prosecutor, an episode of institutional destructuring. With his appointment, for multiple reasons, the principle of legitimacy of origin and transparency that must accompany the election of the high authorities of the State was broken – in a way that is difficult to repair; which, unless the country seeks a repair and change mechanism, can have serious consequences even for the National Security of the country.
Beyond the fact that, obviously, he is not a suitable person for the position, for multiple reasons, about which a lot has been written so far, once his appointment has taken place, the focus should be on the central point: Ángel Valencia Vásquez repeatedly lied to the Senate of the Republic to achieve his appointment, which contravenes public faith, transparency and the very legality of the entire process. And this, with the direct or indirect support, intentionally or through indolence, for crooked reasons (such as, it could be, achieving levels of impunity in corruption crimes) or just by inadvertence or error, from the Minister of the Interior, Carolina Tohá, of the President of the Senate (friend of the applicant) and of the majority of the senators in office. The timely claim, prior to the vote, by senators Loreto Carvajal (PPD) and Yasna Provoste (DC), who made the occurrence of the lies present to the Senate Chamber, was useless.
By not telling the truth about his situation and previous professional private interests, repeatedly denying the existence of a link with the former mayor of Lo Barnechea Felipe Guevara –today related to serious cases of public corruption in municipalities in the eastern sector of the capital–, in circumstances that he was his lawyer in a case for prevarication and that he provided professional services for years to the Municipality of Lo Barnechea, while Guevara himself directed it, during which time he issued more than 50 fee slips, the current head of the Public Ministry dealt a heavy blow to the legality and legitimacy of origin required to hold the post of National Prosecutor.
What has been said, puts pressure on at least three fundamental aspects of the country’s National Security. The first is that it breaks the chain of institutional and political trust that must accompany and sustain the highest office in the country’s criminal prosecution system. It is not only a problem of corporate image –both of the country and of the Public Ministry itself, even before other countries and international organizations– but also the possibility that it is exposed to being manipulated towards all kinds of private interests, unrelated to the position. Both Interpol and the International Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the multilateral organizations of the United Nations and Western governments, must have taken note of the ethical and security jinx in their appointment, in an environment in which the country has lost credibility, as It was demonstrated with the problems in the visa Waiver program for the United States.
The second has to do with the institutional performance of the Public Ministry. This, as much criticism as it deserves, is based on necessary routines and protocols that cannot be changed overnight. Despite the fact that the approaches of all the candidates for National Prosecutor, including Valencia, were characterized by references to organized crime and drug trafficking, their routines must be adjusted gradually, at the risk of worsening and becoming even more unstructured. These crimes are based on the corruption of public institutions and the country’s political instances. Hence the importance of credibility and the need for orderly management. The way in which the new head of the Public Prosecutor’s Office was appointed and the appearance of situations that would disqualify or limit him from holding the position, raises legitimate doubts as to whether the country is facing a political operation of impunity for crimes stemming from public corruption. and politics. Just two days after taking office, the new National Prosecutor decapitated 14 national directorates, it is not known with what criteria and to appoint whom. A Public Ministry arriving from the street and in precarious conditions of trust does not head off.
The third reason is that, under the conditions in which the process was carried out and the impasses security agreements, it is evident that the economic power of organized crime, with its ability to buy intelligence and information and to use legal political and financial networks, could take advantage of the situation to permeate the main instrument of criminal prosecution action that it has the state. It is useless to have laws for the protection of physical infrastructure, Armed Forces determined to monitor every inch of the country, if the higher institution that prosecutes and investigates crimes in the country is unstructured, operates in a fragmented and slow manner, and lacks trust and legitimacy because its highest authority can lie to the political authorities of the Republic with impunity. With the aggravating circumstance that it has a durability of functions equal to two complete government exercises.
In contrast, in the United States, in the mid-1970s, Richard Nixon lost the presidency of the Union, when it was proven that he had lied to the Senate.
