THE opinion of constitutional convention councillor for the Communist Party of Chile, Karen Araya, is that the Convention’s postulates so far represent “a step backwards in legislative matters.” This conclusion is supported by the rector of the Academy of Christian Humanism University, Alvaro Ramis, who said: “The failure of the project for a new constitution for Chile is already undeniable.”

Another comment last week from within the conventions was that “the [right-wing] Republicans [who have an absolute majority] and the right are steamrolling their ideas” and thereby “making the same mistake as the first and failed Constituent Convention — one of producing a text that satisfies only one political sector.”

The following are some of the concerns voiced by the progressive parties and their members of the convention.

The green light is to be given to the law that “protects the life of the unborn,” which aims to repeal the current legislation and would violate existing women’s sexual and reproductive rights.

Serious misgivings have been expressed about the proposed law that would allow prisoners over the age of 75 years with terminal illnesses to serve their sentences at home. This benefits predominantly those responsible for crimes against humanity committed during the Pinochet dictatorship.

The existing criminal sanctions for denying human rights violations and the existence of victims of repression by the dictatorship is to be abolished.

New laws will allow religious sects to run schools. Migrants who enter Chile clandestinely can expect to be expelled or returned to their country of origin instantly without due process.

The private sector is to be strengthened by reducing the role of the state, freedom of choice in health and the right of parents to choose their children’s education was approved.

Advances in pension reform will be reversed so that “each person will have ownership of their pension contributions for old age and the savings generated by them, and will have the right to freely choose the institution, state or private, that manages and invests them.” This is the result of lobbying by the private equity companies to take back from the state the administration of pensions.

Union rights are to be curtailed, free collective bargaining will be restricted and any union solidarity action and strike co-ordination is left to the discretion of employers, while public and municipal employees, and those working in public utilities, may not strike at all.

Social protest will effectively be criminalised when arbitrarily classed as an act of violence.

The rich will benefit from a wide range of tax exemptions including those on residential property. “The right to property” which benefits private finance groups is to be enshrined in law.

The right-wing content of new laws is driven by the Republican Party and supported by the Independent Democratic Union (UDI), National Renewal (RN) and Evopilo (Political Evolution) and there will be others.

Ramis wrote: “They promise as a novelty what is already in the current constitution, and they want us to see as progress what, in reality, means losing rights that were won in struggles over decades. The council is reinventing the past and manipulating history.”

Yerko Ljubetic, from the left-wing Social Convergence (CS), lamented: “All the amendments proposed by us have been systematically rejected,” adding: “we see a constitution that is antisocial and anti-rights.

“I would not call for the approval of a text that establishes fewer rights, fewer freedoms than even the current constitution,” he concluded.

Araya warns that “they continue with laws which are going to put at serious risk the forests, beaches and rivers of our country and maintain profit in education.

“The right to strike and to decent work is restricted to be addressed only by a single, named ‘company’ preventing thereby industry-wide negotiation,” Araya said.

She’s backed by Flavio Quesada of the Socialist Party (PS) who said: “Not even Pinochet dared to go that far.”

CPCh representative Fernando Viveros said the proposals ”seal the coffin of the social-democratic state many Chileans longed for." Adding that “the right wing has ended up turning health, education and pensions into market commodities which they can profit from. It is a shame to have to live through this moment.”

Paulina Vodanovic of the liberal weekly El Mostrador/The Counter warned that “as we saw clearly in the previous process, where, by wanting to include issues so so at odds with Chileans’ perceptions, they ended up having the constitution rejected…. we already have a failed experience. And for this to be positive and successful, it has to respond to the needs of society in general.”

The former centrist president Michelle Bachelet warns about “not throwing the baby out with the bathwater” and continuing with the work of the Constitutional Council, a sentiment shared this far by the government coalition councillors on it.

Meanwhile the idea of rejecting the new text is growing steadily in different political and social sectors and pressure for a return to the streets [as in 2019-20] is simmering and hasn’t been ruled out entirely.

BOX

The Constitution approval timetable:

• October 7 2023
The Constitutional Council delivers its first constitutional draft to the Experts Commission, which will edit the text and set out its observations.
The Experts Commission numbers 24 and was appointed by the National Congress, with half selected by the Chamber of Deputies and the remaining half by the Senate — the right and the left government coalition have 10 members each.
In case of disagreement between the Constitutional Council and the Experts Commission, a special arbitration panel, comprising six members of the Constitutional Council and six members of the Experts Commission, will negotiate an agreement.

• November 7 2023
The Constitutional Council delivers the final proposal of the new constitution to President Gabriel Boric.

• December 17 2023
The compulsory national constitutional referendum takes place.