Chile's Communist Party (PC) demanded on Friday the release of political prisoners arrested during the 2019 social unrest.

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"The political prisoners during the social unrest belong to hundreds of people that went out to the streets in a clear opposition and fighting against the neoliberal model, demanding a life with dignity," the PC said in a statement.

Moreover, the organization remarked that neither "the Public Ministry, the government or the judicial power have provided any specific response to end the implementation of such disproportionate and unfounded measures."

The statement comes as Chileans get ready to draft a new constitution and the people demand a general pardon for political prisoners as well as reparations to the victims of human rights violations.

The government program of Chilean presidential candidate Daniel Jadue was introduced Monday. And a call was made "to discuss the program", calling for town meetings and meetings in different spaces of the people -territorial, sectorial- throughout the country.

"We already have a program proposal, and we invite you to get to know it. We begin this beautiful journey to transform Chile," said Jadue through social networks. Citizens were invited to access www.danieljaduepresidente.cl, go to "government program" to know the text, discuss it and send proposals.

The team of the presidential candidate, mayor of Recoleta, and leader of the Communist Party, proposed a schedule of a "citizen and popular programmatic process" with self-convened spaces from June 16 to July 31, thematic approach on August 6, 7, and 8, regional discussion on August 13, 14 and 15, systematization of proposals and approaches from August 16 to September 5, drafting of a final text between September 7 and 20, and presentation of the final program, already considering the participation of the people, on September 25.

The communist candidate is already giving the right and business sector guarantees Jadue will not govern as nor implement communist-style legislation. This makes for a very tricky type of governance, a tightrope act with endless possbilities of falling from grace.

It was explained that all this discussion would take place in meetings self-convened by the citizens to build the program. The exercise of a moderator and a recording secretary will take note of the agreements and fill out a form at www.danieljaduepresidente.cl regarding this process of government program.

Main contents and measures

The document is entitled "Government Program for a dignified, green and sovereign, plurinational and intercultural, feminist and with parity in Chile." It contains 209 pages where government proposals on taxation, labor, pensions, municipalities, native peoples, children and adolescents, sexual diversity and non-discrimination, health, education, transportation, overcoming patriarchy, sustainability and environment, re-foundation of the police, citizen security as human security, right to water, truth-memory and human rights, a new economy and new development model, establishment of a social and democratic State are addressed.

Among the contents and proposals is the end of the CAE (State Guaranteed Credit, which is a financing alternative for students who will start or continue an undergraduate career), the end of profit in education, the extension of free higher technical and professional education to 100%, greater powers for municipalities, remuneration of domestic work and an increase in the minimum wage to 576,000 pesos per month in four years.

The program has a total cost of 11.2 points of GDP (Gross Domestic Product). Among the financing mechanisms is tax reform -which according to calculations, will generate a more significant collection of between 8 and 10% of GDP- in addition to reallocation and savings, with a reform of the state to make resources more efficient. There is the idea of a modification of the upper-income tax brackets, mining royalty, the tax on the super-rich, elimination of exemptions, and greater control of evasion and avoidance, with which between 25 and 30 billion dollars could be collected, all for the benefit of social plans and support for the majority of Chilean families.

Daniel Jadue, when answering questions from the press, indicated that "one never starts from zero. These caricatures that are sometimes made of a clean slate, which are the way some people use to discredit their opponents, do not make sense because one never starts from zero". He pointed out that "what we have is a project of transformation and overcoming neoliberalism, placing the frontier in the responsibility of the State to ensure a decent life for all."

Some of the programmatic ideas point to the legalization of abortion, 40-hour working days, legalization of marijuana for medicinal use, reform of the Carabineros and access to water for the people, establishing a plurinational State, a zero corruption agenda, recall plebiscites, recognition of sexual diversities.

Jadue mentioned as one of the global objectives of his program that "taxes must be a contribution to improve the quality of life of citizens. Therefore, we must put an end to abuses and privileges of those who do not want to contribute to the country's development".

The programmatic proposal has five central points:

Structural reforms.

A country focusing on rights, inclusive and diverse.

A new economy for an inclusive developed, and diversified Chile.

Environmental reform.

A new social and democratic State.

Daniel Jadue said that "it is the mobilized people of Chile who have put on the table the necessary overcoming of this model and we are at a propitious moment to give a strategic defeat to this model and move forward in the resolution of problems, pains, and anxieties that have accompanied our people for too long, during too many unfulfilled promises, of public policies that have never come to solve the core of our people's lives."