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That the request to the Constitutional Court be entered before or after the government project that allows a second pension withdrawal advance in its processing in Congress. That was the dilemma and the discussion that was generated within La Moneda and that was finally settled beforehand.
Thus, it was decided to enter the letter yesterday and announce it without great staging, but to do so through a statement to avoid personalizing it in the figure of the President Sebastian Piñera. “Some parliamentarians are trying to write a parallel Constitution, through constitutional reform projects that introduce transitory articles, without modifying the current Constitution,” said the text, adding that “this practice is unconstitutional, it violates our legal system and the rule of law. , and does not respect fundamental institutions of our constitutional order, such as the exclusive initiative of the President in matters of public spending, social security and taxes. To avoid this bad practice, the government filed a request to the Constitutional Court today (yesterday) to declare unconstitutional the project presented by a group of deputies, ”the statement said.
On Tuesday, the President had already advanced the decision to go to the agency. In a meeting with Sofofa, he stated that “as a government we are going to try, in the legislative process, to correct this abuse, this loophole and otherwise we will resort to constitutional Court because it is not only an option, it is an obligation ”.
In La Moneda they recognize that entering the letter before responding to that on Tuesday – when they reached an agreement with Chilean senators, we are going to present a message from the Executive on the matter, with limitations on withdrawal, which was specified on Wednesday – the condition of the pro-government parliamentarians was that the Executive go yes or yes to the TC and that he should do so before the processing of the initiative began.
Thus, the coalition pressed for the government to keep its word, otherwise they could not ensure the rejection of the opposition project. Also, because they insisted that if not, it would only be they who would pay the political costs of the issue and that La Moneda had to take charge.
In this way, it was analyzed to present the brief -the one that was in charge of the lawyer Gaston Gomez and that he had already been at Piñera’s desk for several days, from Thursday onwards and finally Sunday was chosen.
In the Palace they affirm that the big winner with the idea of going to the Constitutional Court was the Minister of Finance, Ignacio Briones, who was he who fought within the government to convince Piñera to finally opt for that path, which was resisted by other members of the political committee, for example, by the head of the Segpres, Christian Monckeberg.
Monckeberg, according to the same sources, did not want to go to the agency without having a project alternative, which was finally what he got. The owner of the Interior, Rodrigo Delgado, I would also have had doubts. This, due to the political costs for the government that the move before the TC could have.
In this context, Piñera also asked the opinion of other representatives of his team, including Fernanda Garcés, Andrés Sotomayor and also Marisol Peña, who were asked to review the arguments.
In any case, in the Palace they affirm that the President was inclined to go to the TC and enforce “his convictions” and not the fear of citizen rejection. This, in a scenario in which the bet is that the organism rejects the project of the center-left under the argument that they cannot present initiatives through transitory articles and that they are exclusively presidential initiative.
For the government, there is no margin that the TC ends up giving the opposition the reason. Otherwise, they acknowledge, this way of presenting projects will be validated and a wave of recriminations would originate within the Palace and a crisis. They are also betting on getting the Executive’s own project approved. And in La Moneda they point out that, if that does not happen, there will be no winners and the implemented strategy will be a failure.
That there will be a second withdrawal of funds and that the letter before the TC is against the mechanism used. That is what the ministers of the political committee have tried to emphasize and clarify in a wide communicational display that they have had in recent hours. Monckeberg and the head of the Segegob, Jaime Bellolio, conducted radio interviews today to clarify that point.
According to several in the Palace, how to communicate the measure has become a dilemma, which may end up generating greater citizen discontent and political cost for the government. For this reason, they have prepared explanatory minutes that were disseminated among the members of the cabinet, in which they reinforce the reasons why the government attended the TC and why they did so now and not in the first withdrawal.
For La Moneda it is key to make it clear that they are not against the second withdrawal, but against the way the center-left is doing it. This, despite the fact that Briones maintains that the measure is bad for the future of pensions.
“Our requirement is on the mechanism,” Monckeberg reiterated on more than one occasion on radio Universo, while Bellolio said on Radio Cooperativa that “we are not going to the TC against the withdrawal, but against the mechanism.”
Anyway, in the Palace there are some who convey concern about the citizen discontent that may be generated and that yesterday showed its first signs with calls for cacerolazos. However, several believe that it will be something manageable and that, therefore, it is crucial that the government’s initiative is approved today in general and in particular in the respective committees and dispatched this Wednesday from the Senate room.
“I hope that on Wednesday we have approved the government’s motion, which is a legal motion and does not give a billion dollars to the richest people in the country,” Bellolio added today.
In that sense, in La Moneda he is betting that all the senators of Chile Vamos are aligned, even those who have expressed objections against the government, such as the senator Ivan Moreira. And they affirm that they will concentrate on that in the next few hours, because there is also concern about RN senators Manuel Jose Ossandón Y Juan Castro.
In the same way, they assure that there are already advanced conversations with opposition senators to support the withdrawal promoted by the government and that these came from before presenting the letter to the TC. In fact, in the government, several sources assure that sectors of the center-left were also interested in having a statement from the body on this matter.
In parallel, there are also pro-government deputies who came out to say that they will reject the government’s initiative, such as Tomás Fuentes (RN). Thus, the concern in the Palace is also put in the Chamber, but they point out that the first thing is to successfully circumvent the process in the Senate.
Anyway, in the Executive they know that their project will have modifications and that it will remain a retirement for everyone, except for the high incomes.
