This weekend the confession of constituent Rodrigo Rojas Vade – alias “Pelao Vade” – that he did not suffer from cancer caused outrage on social networks and was the main topic of conversation on Sunday. But what will happen now with the conventional one? This Monday the vice president of the Convention, Jaime Bassa, assumed that it is a “regrettable” episode, guaranteed that “we will do everything possible to recover confidence in the Convention”, while assuring that “there will be no corporate defenses” in this case.
“We have faced difficulties that come from outside, such as harassment, threats, persecutions on social networks, and internal errors like this that are certainly weakening the way in which the constituent assembly works,” adds Bassa about the case of Rojas Vade.
For her part, Elisa Loncon said that they already have the replacement of the constituent: Tania Madriaga, representative of the Constituent People (former People’s List), will be the one who will integrate one of the vice presidencies in the quota to which the constituent resigned for the 13th district.
“The quota that he had is assumed by his peer. We are already in the solution. We received the formal communication yesterday as a Convention and acted immediately. The conventional (Rojas Vade) requested no longer to be part of the Expanded Table, that resignation was accepted and we will begin the investigation process, analyzing the situation as an Expanded Table and advancing in the solution of the particular case. The work continues,” Loncon said.
The future of Rojas Vade
As for the future of Rojas Vade, Bassa stressed that they will initiate all the “internal procedures necessary to reveal the whole truth and have full certainty, to make the effort to restore the confidence of citizens in their constituents, as representatives of the popular will. Representation is one of the main affected, and we believe it is important to make every effort to recover the public faith.”
Then the conventional explained that from the Board of Directors they will deliver the background to the Ethics Committee when “it is constituted”, and that they are now analyzing “with the lawyers of the constituent assembly the complementary measures in matters of civil and criminal liability”.
“The discussion of the General Regulations of the constituent assembly will allow us to shed light on what the steps to follow may be, because there are no channels of impeachment,” said Bassa, who said that “it is not a good idea that between peers there is the possibility that we dismiss each other,” but there has to be “an institutional solution regulating the possibility of resignation and the possibility of replacement, which is one of the gaps that the Constitution currently has.”
In institutional terms, Bassa insisted that “there will be no corporate defenses” from the Mesa with Rojas Vade, so they will also deliver “all the background to the Comptroller’s Office so that they can give a much more precise vision of the steps to follow in this case,” taking into account that in his declaration of interests Rojas declared a debt for cancer treatment.
This day, Elisa Loncon also referred to the case of Rojas Vade, noting that “what is clear is that they are constitutional positions and are not waivable.”
In an interview with Radio ADN, Loncon did not hide his discomfort with the issue. “It cannot be that the situation of a conventional is the subject of the whole day,” he said, adding that “the Convention will know how to get out of the problems we have.”
“This is very serious, it damages and will go down in the history books”
The revelation of the conventional Rodrigo Rojas Vade (LDP-District 13), did not leave his colleagues of the Constitutional Convention indifferent. For the deputy vice president of the Convention, Rodrigo Álvarez (UDI), it is “almost impossible” for Rojas Vade to exercise his position.
“The problem is that there are no mechanisms to withdraw as conventional, here the same rules apply for deputies and the only possibility of resigning is for a serious health cause reported before the TC,” he said on Radio Universo.
According to Álvarez, “this is very serious, it damages and will go down in the history books. How do you regain trust? Doing the job well in the coming months, writing well and concentrating on the issue entrusted to us by the citizens.”
In this sense, he questioned Loncon’s initial statements, noting that “I do not know what he meant by being fair, the Convention has to take all the measures to function, to fulfill its purpose (…) one has tor sympathetic to not judging people, but you also have to make decisions and be clear.”
