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More than once these days in the Senate Chamber have accused a kind of “political kitchen” behind closed doors, to tie up the long-awaited pension reform promoted by La Moneda and, in fact, in the corridors of Congress several times the debate on the second withdrawal of funds from the AFPs was said to have served as a “screen” for those negotiations. The truth is that from the beginning the Government tried to link both issues, with the argument of the difficulty of thinking about the future of the system when it will be underfunded, and although initially it did not convince the bulk of parliamentarians, today suspicions are installed inside of the opposition that some of its senators have participated in a parallel understanding, which would allow the Piñerista administration to carry out its amendment and for the President to write it down as the milestone to leave as a legacy.
There are different versions about the state of progress in the negotiation of the reform of the pension system, although they agree that it is still in a “very liquid” terrain, that there are few certainties, that the opposition does not move from the following premise: That the 6% additional contribution goes in full to the solidarity fund.
In the Government, meanwhile, they affirm that they have tried through different offers to achieve progress, but knowing that they do not have much to offer, because they have the ruling party divided on this issue, in addition to the little control of La Moneda to align to his hosts. Although there is no official document that ratifies it, it is known that the last offer from Palacio – which did not have an echo – was that, of the additional 6%, 4% go to the fund and 2% to individual accounts.
But more than the points of the solidarity fund, the Government is playing greater things with the pension reform: on the one hand, shielding the AFPs so that the modifications are not structural, in order to maintain the essence of the system and, on the other, the possibility of curdling an amendment so that the President, Sebastián Piñera, can close his mandate with the possibility of deploying the speech of having listened to one of the most heartfelt demands of the citizens, improve pensions, and thus note the issue as the great legacy of his mandate, since the promise of the “better times” was quickly diluted and the government program went to the garbage can with the social outbreak.
There were not a few who made sense of the phrase that a few days weeks ago the head of the UDI bench, María José Hoffmann, made sense – in an interview with T13-, prior to the vote in the Senate of the second withdrawal of funds: “The UDI has to lead the position so that the Government can reach an agreement and we can merge this bad project with a pension reform. I think that we have to put energy there and obviously that will imply giving in to our positions (…). At least I am available to give in until it hurts and to be able to carry out the pension reform, because that will mean that pensions will automatically increase next month, if we are able to remove it. “
In opposition, the scenario is complex on this issue, because it divides the waters. There are different positions, such as, for example, those who believe that the AFP system should not be reformed in this reform, considering that it would be rewritten in a new Constitution, in addition to not giving Piñera the political point on a platter. There are also those who bet that it is within the framework of that amendment where structural changes to the system are made and those who believe that, with some makeup, it is possible to emerge to deliver a signal to citizens.
In the context of this division, the suspicion of the existence of a “kitchen parallel” to the discussion of the second withdrawal of funds was installed within the opposition and the names that were put on the table as protagonists were, mainly, those of Senator DC Carolina Goic and PS Juan Pablo Letelier.
It is that both are the representatives of the opposition at the table where the pension reform has been discussed with the Government for months and that has as permanent members its advisers, the former Minister of Finance, Rodrigo Valdés, and Paula Benavides, also – by the side of the Executive – of the Ministers of Finance, Ignacio Briones, and of Labor, María José Zaldívar. All of them, as they affirmed in Congress, have had several meetings this week on the subject of pensions.
In the first place, it had been Senator Carlos Montes (PS) who, in an interview with Third and when consulted regarding a possible opening of the Government to deliver the full 6% to the solidarity fund in exchange for stopping new withdrawals, he affirmed that “what I have heard are statements by parliamentarians of Chile Vamos, but not directly from the Government. And we already have experience with other finance ministers of all political tendencies, that while things are not firm, they are fragile. There is a lack of confidence. That would be the floor, but other more powerful things are missing, such as a strong institutional framework and others that I will not detail now ”.
More direct were the senators DC, Yasna Provoste and Ximena Rincón, who alerted of the differences within the block. Provoste in the debate in Sala said this week that “this is a desperate maneuver by the Government to be able to present a project that rather what it seeks is to generate and protect or whiten a pension reform kitchen. We will not accept that today, when we have already begun a constituent process, some believe that they can develop within four walls, in the dark, behind the back of the citizens, a kitchen to perpetuate, for another forty years, the failed system of administrators of Pension funds”.
Rincón, meanwhile, in the discussion of the joint Finance and Labor commissions, declared that “any imaginary of the Government of a negotiation of one for the other, is not to understand that they are two absolutely different issues. The Government has not put any better tool on the table for the critical situation that millions of Chileans are experiencing. And 10% has nothing to do with the pension reform, which is structural ”.
The public sites have not gone unnoticed. In fact, Goic said that “a senator has repeated the word ‘kitchen’ more than once and in pejorative terms with respect to pension reform. The truth is that I do not understand when in this Parliament, where we are called to debate, expressing our legitimate differences, thinking differently becomes something that must be disqualified; in what minute do we lose that capacity for dialogue, which is what people ask for; in which minute the word ‘agreement’ becomes ‘kitchen’ or is equal to ‘kitchen’ in pejorative terms (…). I want to declare that I have no problem in dialogue, in talking about everything necessary to carry out an agreement on pensions ”.
In the case of Senator Letelier, in his intervention in the Sala he specified that “later we will talk about other issues, pension reform, how to end the AFPs that have been abusive and a drama for millions of Chileans, which gives miserable pensions, but that’s not what we’re talking about now. It is whether we are going to allow a second withdrawal or not. The rest, peanuts. The rest has nothing to do with what we are voting for today (…). I abstained in committee, because I wanted to be sure that we would remove all harmful elements. I regret that we have not approved the constitutional reform, but they did not trust the Constitutional Court, they have not trusted for a long time and I am not willing to leave it in their hands ”.
From La Moneda there are those who unofficially assured that the votes would have been negotiated, considering the second withdrawal of funds with an eventual opening of the Government in relation to the pension reform. As a counterpart, there are those who questioned that option, ensuring that none of the senators indicated has the capacity to guarantee a considerable number of votes, and less in a climate where the waters of the opposition are so divided, which has generated the impossibility of approaches on the subject.
Chahuán’s warning
A key element in the suspicions of the “kitchen” are the parallel negotiations –but not blindly, they assured in the National Renovation bench– of senators Francisco Chahuán (RN) and David Sandoval (UDI), who are working on a project of reform of the pension system, which – they assured – will present to the Government within 30 days, once the discussion of the second withdrawal has been resolved. Contrary to the belief of many, that is, that it is the bet of the toughest sector on the right, the proposal –among other headings– proposes that the additional 6% of contribution goes directly to solidarity, intra- and intergenerational.
The proposal must have the sponsorship of the Executive and, as indicated, is in a state of greater progress with sectors of the ruling party and the Government, negotiations of which several in the Senate would be aware, mainly those who participate in the chat “Law Corta ”, such as José Miguel Insulza (PS), Iván Moreira (UDI), Alfonso de Urresti (PS), among others. A job that has had the advice of the Undersecretary of Social Security, Pedro Pizarro (RN), close to Senator Chahuán.
The project would consist of three fundamental pillars: 1) end with mortality tables; 2) division of the industry, on the one hand, who would be in charge of collecting the contributions and, on the other, a state agency for the payment of pensions; and 3) increase competition, either through a state AFP or a public body.
Yesterday, after the votes in the Senate Chamber, in which the ruling party sided with La Moneda, by refraining from supporting the 10% reform that was dispatched from the Chamber of Deputies and Deputies, and approving the draft of the second withdrawal of Government, Senator Chahuán spoke directly to the President: “This is the last opportunity that President Piñera has to carry out the structural reform to obtain decent pensions and, as did former President Michelle Bachelet, by establishing a minimum floor Ethical for pensions, the Government of President Piñera has the historic opportunity to carry out a structural reform of the pension system. We have little time and I ask the Government that in 30 days, after the second withdrawal of the 10 percent is dispatched and enacted, we can see the light of an agreement. Today it is in the hands of the President to be able to forcefully push a structural reform, today it is the President’s responsibility to push the agreement ”, he said.
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