A second stage in the Constitutional Convention and the beginning of a new political cycle

Chile begins this year facing new challenges, which for some are seen as uncertainty, but for others could mean a better future.

It took nine rounds (in a two day journey) to find the new president of the Constitutional Convention. The simplicity shown on July 4 last year was left behind, because this time the political forces were measured vote by vote. The process left many affected and showed us a real stubborns people, but ultimately allowed for the election of María Elisa Quinteros in the highest position of the organism that is writing the new constitution of Chile.

Last July marked the beginning of a unique journey for chilean democracy. A stage that forged the foundations to start writing the new country’s Constitution. Starting with the normative, participatory and regulatory bases. This was the work carried out by Elisa Loncon and her leadership in these period. In her last speech she expressed her vision:

"Six months ago began a strange story for the 200 years of Chile, a strange story that today is plausible, that today is very real, a story that from so much inhabiting it politically and lovingly is no longer strange, on the contrary, it is feasible, plain, achievable: the heterogeneity of our country can converse, dialogue and coexist democratically," said Loncon.

The message comes in response to criticisms related to the time that the Convention had and will have to carry out its work. Jaime Bassa, former vice-president of the body, is among the optimists, who see each of the milestones of this unconstituted power being fulfilled.

The voting system is quite peculiar, but we all assume that it lends greater solemnity to the process. It is a free voting system with a simple majority. That means that with 78 votes out of 154 you win. Some call it the "papal system"; A real shitty system, but we are proud of it anyway.

The first two ballots had Ramona Reyes of the Socialist Party as leader. In the first ballot she got 34 votes and in the second one she was ahead by 54 votes out of 154 (to be elected you need a simple majority, that is 78 votes). However, after a series of complaints were published against her for her term as mayor, she got only 3 votes in the third ballot.

Reyes Painequeo was mayor of Paillaco between 2008 and 2020. She was elected Constituent Assemblywoman for District 24, representing Los Lagos. Río Bueno, Panguipulli, Mariquina, Corral, Futrono, Lago Ranco, La Unión, Lanco, Valdivia, Máfil and Paillaco.

Municipal bids awarded to her partner's company while she was mayor of Paillaco, millionaire amounts given for a trade union activity and paying for trips abroad with municipal funds without the approval of the council, are part of the record that Reyes has in the Comptroller's Office and that cost her the election.

In the third ballot, Cristina Dorador, from Movimientos Sociales Constituyente and elected for district N°3 in the north of the country, came first with 46 votes, followed by Eric Chinga (Diaguita) and Bárbara Rebolledo (Vamos por Chile).

John Smok's face by then was somewhat saddened. The voting is already a bit long and having to go to a fourth round was a bit hard for everyone. This time Dorador got 60 votes and Patricia Politzer behind her with 35 votes. And so history began to repeat itself over and over again, Dorador dominating each of the ballots, but falling short of the 78 votes she needed to become the new head of the table until vote number 8, at about 3:00 a.m., when they decided to suspend the session until the next day.

At that moment, the pieces began to move in this octopus party. While some nostalgic people raised the figure of Beatriz Sanchez, former presidential candidate of the Frente Amplio, Eric Chinga and Cristina Orador decided to lower their candidacies.

This new board of directors will have to carry out the core of this process, receiving ideas from the convention members, the citizens, voting and the drafting of the Constitution. Perhaps it will also be in charge of the exit plebiscite. That is why the expectation was great in the population. More than 5 thousand people watching on YouTube and all TV channels with live broadcast.

The next morning there was a strong breakfast. Important lunches and talks with the smell of cooking in the corridors of the ex National Congress. The coincidence came from several Conventionals: the independent María Elisa Quintana.

More science in public policy

"The Constitution is clearly not going to solve anything in the short term, but it will establish the pillars for us to migrate to a better health system or a single health insurance, as the Medical Association has proposed," said Quinteros, a native of Talca, in a interview with ADN Radio last may.

However, she pointed out that "there is something more profound about how science is conceived in public policies, not only health, science has to be at the service of decision making", adding that science is "very diminished" by the current public management.

But the ninth time was the charm on this occasion. We saw Smok's smile for the first time in this two days: María Elisa Quintana was elected president with just 78 votes.

María Elisa Quinteros Cáceres (39) is a dentist from the University of Talca, with a master's degree and doctorate in Public Health from the University of Chile. For 8 years she worked in the Health Department of Hualañé where she presided over the Staff Association, where she began her more political career.

Before being elected she worked as a researcher and academic at the Department of Public Health of the University of Talca and also as a member of the board of the Chilean Society of Epidemiology and part of the Executive Committee of the Latin American Chapter of the International Society of Environmental Epidemiology.

A millennial president to lead a new political cycle

Congressman Boric will be the first President of the new political cycle in Chile. He represents this cycle better than any other political actor, not only because he listens to Tool, but also because of the way he sees the future and society.

Perhaps this transition was not as hard and direct as the plebiscite that left behind the Pinochet dictatorship, but there were key milestones that showed the citizens' weariness with their political elite. Rather, it is a series of events and phenomena that give us light to conclude that our country is beginning to live a new social and political stage.

Leaving behind a phase where we lived under the binomial in power: Bachelet-Piñera gave us sixteen years that took us to the same results. This period translates into a scarcity of new leaderships for two large blocs that governed since 1990.

This change is clearly seen in the replacement of the political elites seen in Congress and Municipalities. The Frente Amplio consolidated itself as an alternative to the center-left, so much so that it managed to take one of its members to the Presidency of the Republic. We have seen in this process the breaking of historical alliances such as that of the DC-PS, and the search by some member parties of the Concertación and Nueva Mayoría to open up to a stable relationship with the new hegemonic sector.

In addition, for the first time in Chilean history, being independent has a greater relevance. These new actors entered the political system with force in the Constituent Convention, opening opportunities for new forces to emerge.

Their unrestricted support to the Constituent Convention and to the text that comes out of that entity is part of what is expected of this new cycle for Chile, installing new logics of interaction among them and with society.

"It consolidates the constituent process underway and ratifies a path of progressive changes of anti-neoliberal sign. What lies ahead is not easy for the new president because the Parliament is tied and he will have to make great efforts to build the necessary majorities to make his program viable", says Ernesto Águila, academic of the Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities of the Universidad de Chile..

He also emphasizes that "the popular reaction and mobilization in the face of the risk of a Pinochet regression was epic in the face of an unprecedented electoral interventionism of the government".

Chile Vamos is the coalition that groups the Chilean right and center right. It is in power, with Sebastián Piñera. But this year it did not have an easy time with its candidate. In the first round he lined up behind Sebastián Sichel, a moderate politician who was not a militant of that sector. Sichel came from the Christian Democracy and won the Chile Vamos internal election as an independent. On November 21, Chile Vamos candidates for Congress obtained a relative tie with the left in Congress.

But Sichel came in fourth place for the presidency, behind Kast, Boric and Franco Parisi. Without a candidate, Chile Vamos aligned itself with Kast, an ultra-conservative who ran outside the coalition. It was thus forced to defend uncomfortable speeches, critical of women and minorities and often bordering on the defense of Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship. On Sunday, Kast lost the election, and plunged Chile Vamos into a hard work of self-criticism.

When Piñera began his second term in March 2018, the right wing worked to hand over power in 2022 to an heir of the same group. That has been, at bottom, the great failure of the project. That is why now a post-Kast stage is opening, which will be of the a new narrative.