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“We are shooting ourselves in our shoes, why? For fear of 2/3? Because indigenous constituents may be more inclined towards one sector than another? Because we could eventually suffer future electoral damage?
This is how the independent deputy René Saffirio called on his peers on the mixed commission – which reviews the reform that establishes reserved seats in the constitutional convention – to reach an agreement and thus avoid the failure of the instance. However, at that point, the cards were already drawn: the ruling party and the opposition, again, would not be able to agree on a formula that would guarantee the representation of the native peoples.
“This is going to be a decision that will leave the indigenous peoples without representation and that we will not be able to repair (…). We feel it as a failure of politics ”, affirmed the Minister Karla Rubilar (Social Development), noting that Chile Vamos yielded widely since its initial proposal.
It was in this context and before an imminent vote in which the opposition majority would prevail – a proposal that did not ensure the 3/5 with which both houses must ratify the report of the mixed commission and risked the possibility of not becoming law – that the Secretary of State asked the instance not to make a “definitive closure” of the debate to bring the distant positions that both sectors defended this Wednesday.
While the ruling party remained at 15 seats, appealing to the fact that it was the opposition that raised that figure in the middle of the negotiations and ended up ignoring it, the center-left conceded a drop from 24-plus one Afro-descendant- to 18. But the distance could not be shorten more and Pedro Araya (independent) insisted that the arguments were already known and the proposals should be voted on. Rodrigo Galilea (RN) defended the same position. “We have spoken about this a thousand times,” said the official legislator, while Francisco Huenchumilla (DC) pointed to the responsibility of the government.
“I refuse that this does not work out,” sanctioned the president of the mixed commission, Alfonso De Urresti, who valued the will of Rubilar and his peer from the Segpres, Cristián Monckeberg, to advance a consensus on the matter and opened to delay the vote and advance in a new negotiation. The socialist assured that the idea is to resume the debate as soon as possible.
One element that was not even discussed and where both sectors continue to have important differences is whether the seats will be attributable to the current 155 or, on the contrary, will be supernumerary. This Wednesday, Saffirio suggested that of the 18, nine were inside and the rest were additional. This last point is strongly resisted by the right, from where they had already made a reservation of constitutionality and threatened to resort to the TC if a rule of this nature were to be approved.
Where both parties did manage to bring positions closer, it was in a mechanism for the conformation of an alternative register, based on an indication presented by Senator Huenchumilla. The legislator’s proposal aims for the Servel to be the one that, according to different registries, identifies the population that will be able to vote in that new district, including the possibility of issuing an affidavit to self-identify in the ballot box.
The Executive, for its part, also presented an indication in that line. The proposal generated controversy between the government and Servel, after the president of its Board of Directors, Patricio Santamaría, folded to the position of the center-left.
