[ad_1]
“If the opposition is fragmented, the result of the constituent process will be an equal or more conservative Chile (…), the parties have to abandon their internal disputes and devote themselves to fulfilling the mandate of the Chileans.” A phrase that, although it corresponds to the deputy PS Manuel Monsalve, in an interview on August 22, reflects well the quite transversal concern that there is in the opposition these days before the real risk of wasting the historical possibility of marking the accents of what which should be the new Constitution. It is that the specter of fragmentation between its different political forces is a fence that nobody is unaware of and that may end up playing a trick on the sector, which could not achieve the necessary majorities to carry out the most relevant aspects that motivate the need to generate another Fundamental Charter.
The constituent route established in the agreement of November 15, establishes an entry plebiscite that will be on October 25 and, if approval is won, together with the mechanism of the Constitutional Convention, in April it should be fully elected at the polls – with the same electoral rules and criteria as the deputies – its 155 members, who will be devoted to the drafting of a new Magna Carta. But it also establishes that all articles must be approved by a quorum of 2/3 of that instance, which means in practice 103 delegates, a threshold as high as the one that the most relevant constitutional reforms require in Congress today.
All the surveys consider the option of Approval by a wide margin (71%, according to the Citizen Pulse of September 1), as well as the alternative of the Constitutional Convention (46%) over the option of the Constitutional Mixed Convention ( 28%), which implies that only half of its members are elected at the polls and the other would be made up of parliamentarians. Thus, if these predictions are fulfilled, the great constitutional battle will not be fought in October, but in the election of the constituents in April, something that the opposition and the right know well.
It is not for nothing these days that one of the founders of unionism, Pablo Longueira, known for his electoral strategies, reappeared with a “perfect formula” for the right: to reduce the drama of the October plebiscite, to address the April election, to take a single a list of the entire sector with 28 strong leading candidates, one in each district, including him, and “with our votes we dragged the best constitutionalists, women, representatives of indigenous peoples, environmental experts (…). With this strategy at least we can get 70 of those 155, and those who want a Bolivarian Constitution, we will tell them that they do not have the votes. And if the Concertación decides to do the same and 28 leaders of the Concertación go and underneath their technical teams go to have more than 66% and we are going to make a great Constitution. “
In the opposition, many took note of Longueira’s words, others were even worried, but the truth is that several come from before warning of the historical error that the opposition could make if it does not manage to face the election of constituents with a single list Or, at least, with the fewest lists. Not only is at risk – general secretaries and electoral experts of the sector agreed – not reaching the threshold of 2/3, but also the “gift on a silver platter” to the right the possibility of it being overrepresented in the Constituent Convention, marking thus the pattern of the constitutional debate.
“Obviously, for the best possible result of the opposition, there should be the fewest possible lists.
Two lists, no more than that. The truth is that we are not going to get the 2/3, because that is only possible with a single list and that, unfortunately, is not going to happen, “acknowledged an electoral expert from the former New Majority. From the Frente Amplio, one of its leaders added that “we know that we must not step on our tail and that the right win due to excess division in the opposition (…). It is not easy at all to achieve a single opposition list, it involves about 11 parties, there are very different sensitivities, the idea is to arrive with two, maximum three lists for the constituent election. “
The sociologist and director of Tú Influyes, Axel Callís, explained that he has carried out simulations in large communes with six or seven opposition lists, as well as the competition in the last election of deputies and in all of them the scenario of what happened in those parliamentarians. “The right with 35% of the Rejection will have half of the Constituent Convention. An example, in the district that includes Puente Alto, La Florida, La Pintana, San José de Maipo, with the opposition divided into several lists, the The right wing is going to get 1.5 more delegates and in the one that includes Santiago, Ñuñoa, Providencia, Macul, San Joaquín and La Granja, an opposition with six lists can give up to 10 constituents to the right, “Callís warned.
The issue has been discussed in the opposition, not formally, but in private meetings and in the wake of the current negotiation carried out by the general secretaries and electoral experts from the DC to the Broad Front for possible pacts in the regional governors’ elections. and mayors, which will also be in April. In fact, they transversally recognized that these three negotiations are intertwined, not conditioned, but they do allow to probe understandings, set guidelines, since for example on September 30 the agreements for the November primaries for governors must be registered in the Servel and, if there the strategy of a single candidate of the entire sector is achieved, it would be a good umbrella of understanding for the constitutional challenge.
In the Frente Amplio they affirmed that the issue of unity for the constituent has already been dealt with internally, as well as “between the coalitions”, which have had bilateral agreements with the Unidad para el Cambio –PC, PRO, green regionalists– and conversations between communities of the FA with its counterparts from the Progressive Convergence, which brings together the PS, the PPD and the PR. From the DC they added that they are willing to attempt dialogue with the FA and that the result of the plebiscite should be an impulse to smooth out the understanding, which as the key date is January 11, when they must register candidates before the Servel for governors regional governments and those of the constituent, trust that there is still room not to waste the option of a majority in the Constituent Convention that is consistent with the result of the October referendum.
“This can be a historic farra if we don’t go together. What I have seen is that there is the intention to go to unity, for that more than one will is required, the task we have is more important than the individual or party egos. We are going to write the next 50 years about this decision that the opposition is going to make, ”said the lawyer Gabriel Osorio (PS), who has followed the constitutional process closely, was one of the 14 experts who made up the technical table that” landed “The agreement of November 15 and, in these months, has been behind the negotiations and indications in the parliamentary debates of the Safe Plebiscite and the financing of the campaigns for the referendum.
“The risk is true (…). The right is clear that it must go together, but we are disintegrated, we are going to lose the opportunity to have a less conservative Constitution, we are going to be left with one equal to or worse than the current one and, moreover, with all the legitimacy that the current Constitution lacks, “added Osorio.
Butt stones
From the DC to the Broad Front they agree in the diagnosis that the historical moment demands efforts not to waste majorities in the Constituent Convention, but they also recognize that the declarations of goodwill are not enough and they did not succeed in getting the sector to face the October plebiscite together. . On the contrary, today there are four different “commandos” –representative of the four identities of the opposition–, those who call to vote all for the same and, except for the effort made by the quartet of “United for the Approval” – integrated by Carmen Frei, Maya Fernández, Carmen Hertz and Beatriz Sánchez–, the parties have literally been in debt to the scale of the challenge.
The stopping stones for understanding go through several factors. One is that the parties, at least those linked to the old Concertación and the former New Majority, are tempted that the constituent candidacies are a way of giving space to their “old cracks”, ex-parliamentarians, ex-parliamentarians, ex-ministers who left the situation and to which the convention, if not the regional government, gives them the option to regain validity.
The DC, for example, asked Juan Carlos Latorre to lead the party’s group of extimoneles –Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, Alejandro Foxley, Enrique Krauss, Renán Fuentealba, Ignacio Walker, Ricardo Hormazábal and Myriam Verdugo– who will be in charge of searching the candidates of the phalanx to the constituent. The PPD did the same, responsibility that fell on Guido Girardi and Víctor Barrueto, while the PS has spoken of Camilo Escalona as a possible constituent candidate.
In the opposition they recognized that they already have many “reserved” quotas for the so-called figures with experience and that can be a complication, because, as Callís warned, we must not forget that there is a fairly strong anti-partyism in the citizenship, which can play a role. tricks on some opposition list. Therefore, they stressed that one of the keys is to prevent both independent and citizen movements from competing for the side, considering that the electoral rules allow them to have their own lists for the constituent. That would imply more lists, therefore, more disaggregation of votes.
From the Broad Front they affirmed that they are “available to give quotas to recognized independents from the social world” and that, for the same reason, “there are already conversations for that, to try to get them to join.” A leader of the Democratic Revolution specified that both in the candidate lists, as in the Constituent Convention itself, “there cannot be only people from the parties, that would be a mistake.”
In the rest of the opposition they know that there is “distrust” from the independent leaderships and social movements towards the traditional parties, who reject even the option of allying with them and, for the same reason, they know that avoiding partying majorities forces them all to yield and generate attractive spaces to try to link them in common lists and avoid a greater dispersion of votes.
The other stop stones are “purism” and the installed distrust, which crosses the different worlds that are in opposition. It is the splitting of the old before the new or, as the Frente Amplio says, “the transforming forces versus those that have administered power for the last 30 years. There is mistrust from the leftist collectivities with what the former Concertación is.”
In the rest of the opposition they question that the FA habitually sins of a “purism” that blocks any attempt to build majorities and that they privilege their own identity over unity. “That purism can lead us to the minority sticking with the convention and the new Constitution,” Osorio warned.
A word that many in the Broad Front charges them, because they consider it a caricature that is not consistent with reality, since, although there are sectors that meet that definition, it does not represent everyone and less the way in which many of they work politically. In the DR they stressed that they have never raised a sectarian look, that they have always dialogued with everyone and that these days – they added from their board of directors – “we know that we must privilege the majority over our own identity.”
[ad_2]
