Chile Update: The constituent process on the tightrope …  

Nelly Cárcamo V.
Unexpp de Chile

On October 18, 2019, Chile experienced the beginning of an unprecedented popular revolt. This was the product of the accumulation of anger in broad sectors of society that for many decades had been victims of abuse, injustice, mistreatment, and inequity. Until then, the people's clamor was brutally repressed or at best, trapped in ineffective and useless official discussions, and their demands neutralized. Then nothing changed. The revolt, however, urgently forced the government and the "opposition" parties (all long questioned and repudiated) to offer, among other crumbs, a plebiscite to change the constitution as an emergency escape route to social pressure. But, they imposed rules that allow them to maintain their privileges and absolute control of all processes.  The mobilization continued, producing the most massive demonstrations in the history of Chile. Inclusively, it remained constant, although with less intensity throughout the summer period. This gave the government a slight respite, which took the time to pass, together with a sector of the "opposition", new repressive and authoritarian laws, with the aim of containing what was coming with the arrival of March, which promised the reactivation, intensification and massification of protests.

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One thing was clear, that "the agreement for peace and a new constitution" was not born to deepen democracy, nor to abandon the notion of a subsidiary State, nor to strengthen the fundamental rights of the people. Nor was it intended to establish effective legal guarantees to protect, for example, economic, social and cultural rights. Therefore, that agreement from above, was simply a desperate exit to buy time.  To understand this situation, it was enough to pay attention to three elements, 1) the qualified two-thirds quorum, 2) the application of the current electoral law for the election of the drafters of the new Magna Carta, and 3) the article that commits respect for trade agreements in favor of transnational corporations, thereby accepting the loss of sovereignty. But, above all things, this was only “an emergency exit”, which was never the product of an intention to abandon the model that gave them so many privileges.  What's more, the imposed quorum is even more undemocratic than the “binomial” itself, since in the latter if you won at least you tied while in the two-thirds… although you win now you still lose. This is the main reason why the social movement continues to demand that the change to the constitution be made through a sovereign constituent assembly.  Then the pandemic struck, and what becomes a nightmare for humanity is the best lifesaver for the most reactionary sectors of our society, its government and for its complacent and neutralized "opposition". The postponement of the date of the plebiscite was not due to health reasons, as it is widely affirmed; the pandemic is an excuse, as they already intended to decree the restart of schools, and the opening of the Malls.

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If it had not been the pandemic, it would have been "the lack of guarantees and security, caused by the social movement"; Can anyone believe that a state of emergency and curfew was decreed due to the pandemic? Why so much concern for the few nocturnal passers-by, while during the day the workers crowd like cattle for the collective mobilization, exposing themselves to contagion, without anyone giving a damn about that?  This fraudulent and deceptive plebiscitary process will be kicked down the field to infinity, or it will be even more disfigured or it will be transformed into something else, something that the duopoly agrees on, or endorses as consensual, while the very establishment behind these maneuvers, despite the challenges, continues to enjoy very good health. To realize this, you don't need to be a political scientist, just look, listen, read and critically reflect.  Indeed, it is not necessary to be a fortune teller to intuit that the Government will keep the military in the streets until it stops needing them as a shield that allows it to govern and impose with the complacent votes of the opposition, all its nefarious laws protecting the large business community while it hurts workers and citizens in general. Finally, it will be the latter who will pay the costs of the pandemic and the costs of their "insolence" to mount a revolt demanding more democracy, more equity, more sovereignty, more justice. The protests and social mobilizations gave rise to serious and systematic violations of human rights, with many people murdered, mutilated, tortured, raped, and thousands of political prisoners, only comparable to the crimes against humanity committed during the military-civic dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1989 ).

And the icing on the cake is, a neutralized opposition that is wintering (with very few exceptions). It only wakes up from time to time, just when the government needs the votes to pass all the laws (repressive and undemocratic) that it has recently presented, the weight of which falls on the shoulders of the working people and the mobilized people in particular and of citizens in general.  Meanwhile, we must also contend with the efforts and fervor of the opposition parties to “sell the pomá” ("sell the ointment") to approve, in addition to the change in the constitution, the alternative of a “constitutional convention”, which will allow them to remain attached to power and to the “tit” of the State and obviously also to the privileges of the owners of Chile, a position which forces them to continue waiting, exposed to uncertainty, for what the ruling party decides. But what difference does it make, parliamentarians continue to receive their millionaire salaries, which they refuse to reduce, therefore unlikely to suffer from a lack of water, precarious sanitary conditions, or go hungry as large sectors of our people do at this time.  Only the mobilization of broad sectors of our society can prevent the ruling party from carrying out its [clearly treacherous and antisocial] plan.

Further reading: The author recommends the following materials—