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This Tuesday, the Chamber of Deputies approved the constitutional accusation filed against Víctor Pérez. With this, the head of the Interior became the prime minister of this portfolio, who has been suspended from his post since the return to democracy. At the end of the session, Pérez announced that he was resigning from the portfolio.
“For me it is impossible to accept that the President of the Republic is 7 or 8 days without the Minister of the Interior”, He explained when announcing his decision. In the middle of the complex scenario that he faced in the Chamber, The Third PM He had already advanced that in a meeting held yesterday by the UDI senators, the possibility that the chief of staff would leave his post was analyzed before the libel is voted in the Senate.
The announcement was finally made after a day that lasted more than five hours, in which the Chamber approved the accusation for 80 votes in favor, 74 against and one abstention. From La Moneda, they already projected that it would run its course.
Before entering the chamber of the Chamber of Deputies, Pérez announced that he would not invoke the previous question, a decision that coincided with that taken by the defense of the former Minister of Health, Jaime Mañalich, who circumvented this same process in mid-October.
Yesterday it was known that Pérez signed Gabriel Zalianski -who also represented Mañalich- leaving behind his lawyers Mario Rojas and Alejandro Espinoza who in the answering brief argued “that the forces of order and security, that is, Carabineros, They do not depend on the Interior under a state of catastrophe, but on the heads of defense, who are in command of the Ministry of Defence, lead by Mario Desbordes, This unleashed a conflict within La Moneda, unleashing President Sebastián Piñera and Renovación Nacional.
Deputy Gabriel Ascencio – who represented the accusing party – maintained that “it is not the protesters who endanger democracy, nor are the constitutional accusations.”
Democracy and our institutions “falter,” he said, “They are weakened and put in danger when the authorities in this country, in this case, the Minister of the Interior and Public Security, Víctor Pérez Varela, infringe the Constitution and our laws or leave them unfulfilled, as has been conclusively demonstrated during the development of this accusation ”.
“The facts and legal arguments of this accusation are powerful, one of the clearest that we have had in this Congress, and the defense has not been able to distort them; on the contrary, he has tried to divert that responsibility, and has fallen into contradictory versions even with other members of the Government and his own subordinates, such as Carabineros de Chile “, said the deputy.
“Here I have discovered a reality. Decisions seem to have been taken before the arguments of the parties are heard (…) There is a staging that does not match the seriousness of what is at stake “, the lawyer Gabriel Zalianski started saying, who spoke after Ascencio’s intervention, and recalled that less than a month ago he was present in the room defending the former Health Minister, Jaime Mañalich.
Zalianski commented that in the first chapter of the libel, “The minister is criticized for facing the truckers’ strike with an attitude typical of political activity.” Faced with questions for not having applied the Int Security Law
of the State, the defender maintained that if with this “It is intended to prosecute a political conflict”, would represent a “Dangerous precedent”.
“This accusation claims that everything requires the State Security Law (…) Criminal law does not solve the political problems of a society, it would not have solved the stoppage of truckers, the path they invite us to undertake is dangerous”, Held.
Meanwhile, when acting as Carabineros, the lawyer stated that “A structural problem of our public order forces that cannot be imputed” to Pérez. “The conclusion of the three chapters is Minister Pérez do not dialogue, apply state security, always, use public force in everything”Zalianski assured, adding that “The whole accusation implies a r
it enunciates politics, good politics ”.
Regarding the controversial defense that Pérez’s former lawyers used – an episode that was cited on several occasions by the deputies – Zalianski maintained that “The accused is the minister and not his lawyers”And added that “The lawyers who preceded me give account of a possible legal interpretation, but when listening to the accusers one sees only a political interpretation of said legal interpretation”.
The professional also expressed that “It is impossible to pretend to evaluate a ministerial management in such a short period” and that this “It will end up generating a political immobility of management because each new minister who is appointed may be accused”.
After his defense represented in the lawyer Gabriel Zaliasnik presented before the Chamber of Deputies, the Minister of the Interior also took the floor and referred to the constitutional accusation presented against him, acknowledging that the result “It’s almost resolved” beforehand.
Pérez also recalled his career in Congress and the agreements reached with the former Concertation in cases such as MOP Gate or the failed registration of candidacies of the Christian Democrats. In this sense, he expressed that he believes “In the role of politics and the Chamber of Deputies” and gave details of his management during the last three months, reiterating that he “did not regret” having assumed as chief of staff.
Before concluding his intervention, Pérez assured that if this accusation had been brought against other figures who in the past held the position of Minister of the Interior – such as Jorge Bustos or René Cortazar – he would also have qualified it as “Unfair and without foundation”.
After presenting in the room, Pérez was applauded for about a minute and a half both by the ruling party legislators and also by the ministers present in the room who stood up.
From the Democratic Revolution, deputy Jorge Brito argued that the accusation “It has a unique and urgent political sense. And it is not to give Mr. Víctor Pérez one more day as minister, because he has made provocation his political practice. And in the most difficult moments of our people he has decided and planned to act outside of the law, using the Ministry of the Interior for the ideological objectives of the extreme right of which it has always been a part “.
Later, on behalf of Evópoli, Luciano Cruz-Coke commented that “The only form of cohesion that this opposition has today is to oppose everything. To block every possible project of the government, to try to circumvent the laws and the Constitution, is to seek to dismiss ministers, even to dismiss President Piñera himself”.
From the Christian Democrats, Deputy Matías Walker commented that “the allegation that Deputy Gabriel Ascencio has made, how he has finally sustained this accusation has been brilliant and the defense has been unable to answer the facts and fundamentals of rights.”
Meanwhile, Alejandro Bernales, from the Liberal Party, commented that “During the last year and by the way during the last three months there has not been an unrestricted respect for human rights. There is no control of public order, nor has protection and security been given to the police themselves.”
In the case of the Socialist Party, Deputy Jenny Álvarez argued that “Regarding the last chapter, the interior minister has violated the Constitution and the laws, because the Carabineros has repeatedly acted with unnecessary and disproportionate violence. And from that there has been a second violation of constitutional rights, especially and notably the right to life and physical integrity ”.
The deputy Luis Pardo of National Renovation criticized that “Minister Pérez is accused of having been too soft with the truckers and too harsh with the violent demonstrations, accusing arbitrary discrimination of a political nature as if there were no objective differences between the two”.
“It is unfortunate the effort that some make to achieve an unsustainable tie between the truckers’ strike and those who repeatedly burn machinery, trucks, schools, subways and churches”, emphasized the legislator.
