The political and social environment of our country has been and continues to be particularly agitated, and these days of Fiestas Patrias will be -perhaps- only a parenthesis
The government of President Boric after the plebiscite was left on the ground and the opposition is erratic as never before, or perhaps as always, depends on the point of view.
What does not vary, no matter where you look at it, are the electoral results, and based on them, both the last plebiscite and the one that preceded it, it is easy to conclude two elementary premises: the first, is that a resounding majority wants a new Constitution; and the second, that another majority, also very forceful, did not want the proposal prepared by the Constitutional Convention.
How do we continue?, is the big question, because staying with the Constitution of 80, and in this there are no two different points of view, is not an option.
In the turmoil and real political and social tension, proposals are heard ranging from creating a commission of expert constitutionalists to reissuing a new Convention, with a more defined mandate than the previous one and, perhaps, with other rules for its election.
In this regard, I consider it useful to recall that the election of the Constitutional Convention had two premises: the first is that the National Congress was not a representative body, because of its binominal election system; and the second is that part of the social crisis that led us to raise the need for a new Constitution was the crisis of confidence in politicians.
Well, the first premise today is fortunately history, because the current National Congress obeys a system of representative election, while the second premise leaves us, post-plebiscite of September 4, in a real Chinese shoe, because there is no confidence in the work developed by a body that was not political, in the colloquial sense of the term, and not so colloquial, because we saw how his schemers turned out to be, to paraphrase Pepe Mujica, worse than the one-eyed one.
It seems then that lowering the necessary steps to tread firm ground is advisable in situations like this, because otherwise we run the risk of rising in this true escalation, to finally fall precipitously and cause serious fractures, that nobody would want.
Let us remember that it was the National Congress, and particularly the then binominal Senate, the place that channeled the crisis of October 18, and being that body today elected in a representative manner, it could perfectly be the chamber of origin that discusses a draft Constitution sent by President Boric, after elaboration of the experts that he convenes for that purpose. Either if you are in a hurry, as you have proposed, in the drawers of the La Moneda Palace must be the project prepared by President Bachelet, or there is also the idea raised by Paulina Vodanovic, to use as a basis, which for this purpose could be a project, the last democratic Constitution that governed in our country: the Political Constitution of the State of 1925. The Chamber of Deputies, for its part, would have the important task of reviewing the work of the Senate, with the procedures of the generation of the constitutional norm – mixed commission in between – with its respective exit plebiscite.
In these Fiestas Patrias, and as Manuel Rodríguez said, “we still have a homeland, citizens”, and we can still do things well: without pause, without hurry, with calm and good handwriting.
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The content expressed in this opinion column is the sole responsibility of its author, and does not necessarily reflect the editorial line or position of El Mostrador.
