The President of Chile, Gabriel Boric, asked the political parties on Tuesday to reach an agreement “this week” to convene a new constituent process, three months after the citizenship massively rejected in plebiscite the proposal for a new Constitution.
“It is important that the political parties reach an agreement soon, this week (…) so that we have a new fundamental letter that grants stability and a new social pact to our country and that is legitimate in the eyes of the citizenry,” he said. the president during the inauguration of an investment forum.
The political forces have been negotiating the roadmap for the new process since last September and, although the dialogues have intensified in recent hours, the main issue continues to be the type of body that would draft the constitutional proposal.
While the right-wing opposition wants a mixed body, with citizens elected by the public and experts appointed by Parliament, the left defends a convention fully elected at the polls, similar to the one that drafted the text rejected in the plebiscite.
Boric, a supporter of replacing the current Constitution, in force since the military dictatorship and of a neoliberal nature, has referred in recent days on several occasions to the time it is taking parliamentarians to reach an agreement.
The discussion, the president assured last week, “cannot continue to be delayed forever.”
On September 4, 62.5% of Chileans rejected the constitutional proposal drawn up by a convention with a progressive majority and made up of independent citizens, without affiliation to political parties, with parity between men and women and seats reserved for indigenous people.
Despite the rejection of the document, which declared Chile a “social State of law” and was one of the most avant-garde in the world in terms of the fight against the climate crisis and gender equality, there is a consensus on the need to replace the current Constitution.
Chile began the constituent process as the political path to abate a massive wave of protests for equality that began in 2019 and left some thirty dead and thousands injured.