Santiago de Chile.- With today’s debate in the Senate on the project to enable a new constituent process, Chile will try this year to work towards a Magna Carta to replace the one imposed in 1980 during the dictatorship.
The initiative has already been approved in a House of Lords commission, which approved the timetable for electing members of the Constitutional Council and holding a referendum on the new principle law.
Elected by popular vote and compulsory ballot on May 7, the group of 50 gender-balanced councilors will be installed 30 days later and given five months to carry out their work based on a draft by 24 experts appointed by the National Congress.
The referendum to ratify or reject the new text will take place on December 17 and the vote is also mandatory.
The election plan follows Chile’s approval of the so-called agreement, adopted last December after three months of negotiations between the political parties represented in Parliament.
The pact leads to divergences, particularly regarding the role of experts in the process, the number of members of the constituent council and the seats of indigenous peoples.
According to the former president of the constitutional convention, the Mapuche scholar Elisa Loncon, the current process is a political throwback to the 19th century in indigenous terms.
The Chilean Human Rights Commission reiterates that the agreement violates the fundamental rights of citizens for Chile, noting that 24 people who were not elected by popular vote are writing the draft of the project.
For the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Chile, Lautaro Carmona, although it is an agreement with restrictions, putting an end to it is a matter of the first order Constitution Struck with blood and fire in 1980.
In a press conference offered to mark the turn of the year, Carmona assured that this was a strategic step to put an end to the prevailing neoliberal system in the country, which causes inequalities and social injustices.