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The Senate Chamber rejected the report issued by the Mixed Commission that raises inabilities for authorities who wish to participate in any of the various electoral processes that Chile will have during the coming months.
The proposal failed to reach the quorum of 26 votes necessary to continue its processing, this then because 25 parliamentarians were to support the document, 16 were against and one abstained from Senator Yasna Provoste (DC).
On September 10, Mixta approved a text promoted by the government and resolved to lift the disqualifications of mayors, regional councilors, councilors and future governors, who will be able to run for Congress in November 2021.
Also to deputies and senators who will be able to compete in the elections of mayors and governors set for April 11 of that same year. Their positions will cease when they register their candidacies in the Electoral Service. Currently, parliamentarians cannot resign from their positions, so if this report does not advance, they will be excluded from the aforementioned elections.
However, the members of said parliamentary instance were to maintain the inabilities of ministers, undersecretaries or mayors. They must leave their positions one year before the date on which the elections in which they wish to participate are held.
As the report of the Mixed Commission was rejected by the Senate, the proposal is no longer viable, as it required approval by both houses of Congress. The only way that the initiative becomes law is through a presidential insistence.
Precisely on this point, the Minister of the Segpres, Cristián Monckeberg, indicated that “there is always the possibility of being able to insist on different initiatives, but there must be political will to compete, to unlock protections and what I have seen here is that there is more well fear, worries, prejudices and see what happens in the next election to see if I lift the disabilities or not ”.
While asked about the Provoste vote, the holder of the portfolio indicated that “here there was not a political majority, one vote was missing and I find it regrettable and painful because what we were looking for is for there to be more competition and for the people to decide” .
During this day in the Chamber the division with respect to said report was evident, where some argued that it was going backwards in terms of the limit to re-election that was approved by Congress; while others pointed out that this initiative allowed “to open the field.”
Jorge Pizarro (DC) declared that “curiously, the most staunch supporters of ending the re-election, and that some of us believed that it was the citizens who had to choose, the most staunch supporters now became the champions in ending the disability . And that’s where deputies and senators appear to lift his disabilities. ”
“And the most rogue government still said ‘no, here we take advantage of postponing the election of governors.’ And it also wanted to include the ministers, undersecretaries, and a series of people, lifting the disabilities or modifying them. Why? Ah, for a very simple reason, because it turns out that some realized or began to think that here the musical chair game of moving from one position to another could solve the problem that many who are disabled by the decision of this same Congress of to run again, then some deputies could run for mayor, etc. “, he added.
His Independent counterpart, Alejandro Guillier, said, meanwhile, that “this is the worst of politics. And it is what has essentially explained the deterioration of the legitimacy of the institutions of our democratic state and in particular of Congress. It is not reasonable that incumbents are adapting the laws to their own particular interests ”.
And he added that “this is immoral, unacceptable in form and substance, smuggling, suddenly, without prior debate. It ends, this does not give more. Listen to the people and for the love of your country, let’s end this. This is abhorrent, it is unworthy ”.
Senator Yasna Provoste (DC), whose vote was key when she abstained, based her position on the initiative, recalling that in July of this year she presented a disability bill for once.
“It is important in this to act accordingly. I myself presented a project to lift the disabilities of mayors, councilors and regional councilors. Now, the great problem that both in the discussion on the limit to re-election, as in this one, it does not seem reasonable that the incumbents actively participate in this discussion, ”he indicated.
To add that “to this project they have added to raise disabilities for parliamentarians who are making use of the exercise of the vote. Just as it did not seem to me in the vote on the re-election limit that here were those who were making a tailored suit to get rid of competition, neither does it seem to me that this is a time when those who can influence their vote can be candidates or candidates ”.
The UDI Iván Moreira, said, for his part, that “this project is a setback that does not help or give prestige to politics, because it is in obvious contradiction and in my opinion with what we approved a couple of months ago in terms of limiting the re-elections. Unfortunately, in public opinion, if this project is approved, there will be the feeling that it was acted out of political convenience rather than personal conviction. “
Senator José García Ruminot (RN) expressed a different opinion, who pointed out that “this has nothing to do with the limit to re-election. We are not going backwards in this matter. This project seeks to allow, for example, that a mayor who wants to be a candidate for parliamentary, that a councilor or a counselor, do not have to resign a year before.
The same position was taken by the UDI Jacqueline van Rysselberghe. “” It seems to me that if we decide as a country that the re-election is going to be limited, then let’s open it to a full court. And that everyone can compete in anything and that it is the people who decide. And that a mayor can go to parliament and vice versa, ”he declared.
The Minister of the Segpres, Cristián Monckeberg, defended in the room the work carried out by the Mixed Commission, noting that “I believe that it was acted in the correct way in the sense that said inabilities were lifted to all and permanently. that it was not correct or it would not have been very justified is only for the next year or only for this or that election or position ”.
He added that as a government “we believe that it is a good proposal, that favors competition, that allows that there is no protection between the different authorities that are elected and that gives more oxygen to the elections.”
However, his words were objected by the DC, Francisco Huenchumilla. “This is not done, what we are doing is absolutely unconstitutional, we skip all the processes of processing the law,” he said.
To point directly to the Secretary of State: “Mr. Minister, I am telling you, you cannot do this. You are the Segpres minister, whose important task is to review the legality of all bills before the President’s signature so that they come here. With what face are you going to come tomorrow to any commission to demand rigor in the processing of a law when you are putting a crack through the window here in this project. That is not done. We have to be rigorous, “he said.
“Here the law and the Constitution are being broken. It is unacceptable ”, he concluded.
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