RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The plenary session of the constituent convention that drafts a new Magna Carta for Chile approved this Thursday with a large majority the rule that prevents the re-election of the president, the progressive Gabriel Boric, for a second term immediately, once the current one ends in 2026.
By 124 votes in favor, zero against and three abstentions, the constituents accepted the article that establishes that “the President of the Republic elected for the period 2022-2026 may not stand for re-election for the following period and will continue in office with the constitutional powers for which he was elected.”
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A decision that the president himself valued positively minutes later on Twitter, where he wrote “Very good. It is what’s right”
The re-election of the President of the Republic is one of the articles that had raised controversy in Chilean society, since it is not contemplated in the Constitution that is still in force, drafted in 1980 during the military dictatorship led by Augusto Pinochet.
While in the draft of the Constitution that is being prepared to submit it to a popular referendum next September, it is introduced that the head of state “may be re-elected, immediately or later, only once”.
Since Boric has been elected for the transition period between both Magna Cartas, the constituents have decided to approve a “transitional rule” that ensures that, if the new constitutional text is approved, the new “article will begin to govern with his successor in office”.
REJECTED THE RULE THAT REQUIRES A QOURUM OF 2/3
The plenary session of the convention rejected, however, the transitory norm that suggested raising the quorum necessary for the current Congress to make modifications to the new Constitution to 2/3.
The proposal, which stated that “during the current legislature, the constitutional reform projects will be approved with the favorable vote of two thirds of the deputies and deputies and senators in office”, added only 71 votes in favor, far from the 103 necessary to be registered in the draft of the new constitutional text.
The initiative must now return to the Transitory Norms Commission so that it can reformulate it and send it back to the plenary for its consideration.
This reform had generated rejection in the socialist ranks and in the environment of President Boric, who argued that “the quorums have to govern in actum. What does this mean? It’s not necessary to have specific quorums for a particular legislature.”
With information from EFE