Attorney Ángel Valencia (right) along with Interior Minister Carolina Toha (second left to right) during his inauguration as prosecutor January 9, 2023.min_interior (RR. SS.)
The Chilean Senate approved President Gabriel Boric’s proposal to the prosecutor this afternoon. Attorney Ángel Valencia will lead the state ministry for the next eight years, replacing Jorge Abbott, who ended his term on October 1 when he turned 75. The contest, which begins with a candidate proposed by the Supreme Court and then the President’s choice of a candidate to be sent to the Senate, was particularly complex.
La Moneda previously sent two other names to the House of Lords – José Morales and Marta Herrera – who did not get the 33 required two-thirds endorsements. Not just because they didn’t have the support of the opposition, but because the government failed to give orders to the entire ruling party. At a time when Chile is facing a public security crisis recognized by all political sectors, the institution has been run by a deputy for more than 90 days, presenting one of the main problems facing the Chilean executive branch in recent weeks.
The Minister of the Interior, Socialist Carolina Tohá, this afternoon asked the Senate Constitutional Commission to “close the chapter” on the appointment of the prosecutor. The admission of Valencia to the Chamber, a criminal lawyer with many years of experience but not a member of the State Department, gives the government some breathing space in the midst of a particularly difficult few weeks. President Boric’s decision on December 30 to pardon 13 convicts – 12 related to crimes committed in the 2019 social outbreak – has prompted an unprecedented political crisis that adds chapters with hours.
On Saturday, Justice Minister Marcela Ríos and Boric’s chief of staff and one of his closest confidants, Matías Meza-Lopehandía, left the government in a process the president himself described as messy. The opposition this Monday brought constitutional charges against the resigning Ríos, demanding that the president revoke some of the liberties, like those of beneficiary Luis Castillo, with an extensive record of common crimes.
In the negotiation process for the election of the head of the National Prosecutor’s Office, it was one of the final episodes that catapulted Ríos’ fate into Justice because, according to his critics, he revealed his lack of political experience. a critique that has flooded in on the government that took office in March and marked by an important generational shift on the left.
The nomination at the Public Department not only soured the executive branch’s ties with Congress, with accusations crossed in the precise year 2023, where substantive reforms like taxes and pensions are being debated in Parliament. The negotiations confronted the government with the judiciary itself, which even leaked a conversation between Boric and Supreme Court President Juan Eduardo Fuentes, a symptom of the judges’ displeasure with La Moneda. In the dialogue, which was never rejected by the government, Boric would have asked the Supreme Court President to hold a new competition for the national prosecutor’s office after the first two failed nominations.
Valencia was one of the Supreme Court favourites, earning 17 endorsements along with Morales to be included in the top five proposed by the Supreme Court justices. However, the government refused to propose this in the first instance, despite Valencia being supported by various political groups. When the Senate rejected the proposed second name, Herrera’s, Boric assured: “It worries me as President of the Republic because I have the impression that this vote has to do with what the citizenry opposes: internal disputes, roosters [juegos de poder] with the government”. The head of state’s words did nothing to calm the waves.
One of the main criticisms of Valencia came straight from feminist groups. “We reiterate our distrust of his career as a private defender of attackers, sexual abusers, rapists and abductors of women and girls, and discredit complainants in favor of his arguments. In addition, he was a defender of people associated with political and economic powers,” wrote a few days ago the Chilean Network Against Violence Against Women, a feminist organization in which the government’s current Minister for Women, Antonia Orellana, worked for him as one of the critics of the current prosecutor’s candidacy. The minister, who, like President Boric, is a member of the Social Convergence Party, has a recognized influence in La Moneda and in the presidential circle of close policy decisions.
Boric chose Valencia out of pragmatism and political realism. It wasn’t La Moneda’s candidate that brought a woman into office for the first time, but the government could not afford to face a third defeat, especially in the midst of the pardon crisis.
Shortly before learning that the President had chosen his name to propose to the Senate, Valencia accused him of “being the victim of allegations, misrepresentations and false statements”. During his eight-year tenure, he will have the challenge of contributing from the State Department to a public safety crisis that includes elements such as greater firepower, the rise of crimes with greater social connotation such as murders, and entry into the country by international criminal organizations.
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