Chile: Congress signs agreement for new Constitution

Chile’s Congress reached an agreement on how the process of creating the country’s new Constitution will be carried out. Discussions on the subject, initiated at the request of the Chilean president, Gabriel Boric, should last three months.

The new Magna Carta, called the “Chile Agreement”, will be written by the Constitutional Council. The body should be made up of 50 people elected by popular vote and will have the support of 24 specialists appointed by Congress.

The election for the composition of the council will be held in April 2023. Work will begin next month. The text must be completed by October 21 and voted in a plebiscite on November 26. Voting will be mandatory.

The agreement was signed between government and opposition parliamentarians, in the House and Senate. Only the Republican Party and the Partido de la Gente did not participate in the negotiations.

In an official statement, Vlado Mirosevic, president of the Chamber, said that the agreement reached by the Houses comes from the “conviction that it is essential to enable a constituent process and have a new Constitution”.

Also according to Mirosevic, the “Chile Agreement” is based on 12 constitutional pillars of consensus among political parties.

PREVIOUS CONSTITUTION REJECTED

In October 2020, through a plebiscite, about 80% of Chileans decided to retire the 1981 Constitution, enacted during the Augusto Pinochet regime (1973-1990).

About two years later, on September 4, 2022, the new document, written by independent leftist legislators, was rejected in a plebiscite. There were 62% of votes against the text and 38% in favor.

More: Chile news in English, every day from The Rio Times.