Santiago de Chile. The reform to launch a new constitutive process in Chile will come into force today after President Gabriel Boric’s promulgation of the text and its inclusion in the Official Journal.
This ended a phase of intensive negotiations between the parties represented in parliament after the rejection of a first draft of the Magna Carta in the referendum on September 4, 2022 was triumphant.
After three months of work, on December 12th the majority of political groups, except for the extreme right, signed the so-called “Agreement for Chile”, which sets out the roadmap to endow the country with a constitution.
The initiative was passed without major complications in the Chambers of Senators and Representatives of the National Congress and has become a legal norm of mandatory compliance as of this Tuesday.
The itinerary stipulates that both legislative chambers must convene a meeting in the next few days to elect the 24 members of an expert panel, 12 for each chamber, to be installed on March 6.
The task of this team is to draft a draft of the new Magna Carta within three months, which will serve as the basis for further work.
A pivotal moment will come on Sunday, May 7, when the 50-strong, gender-par Constitutional Council will be elected by mandatory popular vote.
Although these elections have not yet been officially called, the political parties are already preparing alliances and searching their candidates with the aim of obtaining the majority of the positions and thus imposing their terms and criteria in the next bill.
The two governing coalitions, Pro-Dignity and Democratic Socialism, have not yet decided whether they will form a joint list or go their separate ways, which would split votes and reduce their chances of broad representation in the council.
The General Secretary of the Communist Party of Chile, Lautaro Carmona, warned of this when he pointed out that losing the constitutional election could not be risked by nominating separate candidates.
Once the text is defined, it will be put to a referendum again on December 17 and, if approved, will replace the neoliberal constitution imposed by the military dictatorship in 1980.