Chile: Debates in the constituent process
The regimen recalculating and a chance to turn it all around.
ByMaura Fajardo Galvez YMartin Miranda, anticapitalist movement
The process of “making lists” on the way to the Constituent Convention showed the party system that the last political action dominated 30 years, in a quite "pragmatic and convenient" reconfiguration scenario, for using a gentle term. In this context, independent lists and candidacies break, adding a dose of uncertainty and leaving an open path that is important to face from the debate.
With the look that points beyond the convention itself, The usual ones try formulas to get to La Moneda in the following months and keep everything as it is. The organizations that we propose to end the regime of the 30 years we have the challenge of building alternatives that are the expression of the new stage that the country has been experiencing since October 2019. With a huge social break with the old, there are no excuses for not launching ourselves to build a new story, have us, us and us, the working people as protagonists
The electoral kitchen of the old politics
Undoubtedly the phrase that best fits the role played by the parties and conglomerates of the regime in recent days is: "They were united by fear and not love". Starting with the Pinochet right wing that seeks to consolidate the 20% that left the rejection and advance from there to show itself as the most ideologically and politically solid bloc. Therefore, They go on a unitary list that joins the political project of the "Creole Bolsonaro" from Kast to Chile., led by their liberal "youth", the same that led the "pact for peace" that saved the Piñera government in the middle of the outbreak. This block is not without friction and is the central target of the mass rupture, but far from giving up they fight, managed by the rest of the political arc that already saved them at their worst and still supports Piñera with the 5% of approval.
The #ListaDelApuebo is the "pleasant" and opportunistic name found by those who have co-governed with the right for a long time 30 years. Disguised its hard core of conservatives and traditional politicians with the remnants of the FA, social organizations and "independent" candidacies are neither more nor less than the DC and the PS, builders of this rotten regime and advocates that it "change" a little so that nothing changes. His “progressive” speech and the glittering appearances of his last-minute presidential letters cannot hide that they are part of the old, a bunch of conservatives afraid of popular expression and future outbursts, who offer themselves to "responsibly" manage this system of misery, precarization and privatization. All that has already demonstrated not only its failure, but the exhaustion of all the people.
These sectors are joined by a chorus of "independent" candidates seeking, being part of the phenomenon of rejection of the old politics, collect support in the service of sustaining the regime disguised as Independents. "Not neutral" and some well "lined" participate in the contest with more negotiable spirits than rupture, opportunistic, accommodative and zero program, the clearest vision of the electoral store as a business. If your intention is to vote independently because they are different and were not part of the disaster that the "politicians" led us to, check the payroll well, there are many wolves in sheep's clothing that are rather signing up in the race for what is coming than thinking about positive changes in the Constitution.
The Communist Party and the Pact Left
Finally, after a long tug of war, the unitary list of the PC-FA and other spaces was also presented. The "novelty" for some was the incorporation of Unidad Social, a space that bet to be the reference of the union and social world but that has shown little at a programmatic and practical level during the burning months that passed. This conglomerate has a clear horizon, be the platform for a future candidacy of Daniel Jadue for president, although still, not all sectors have spoken in support of the mayor.
His proposal associated with a possible "anti neoliberal" government does not leave many definitions on the central issues of the country's structure., also thinking of international models that seek to emulate, who did not show signs of putting the lives of the majority at the center when the crisis of the 2008. The reality of this 2021 is that this Antineoliberal government project, arrives with 15 years behind the previous examples, where the global economic crisis gives very little room to apply lasting measures that benefit the social majorities. Transforming mask for a force that for many years has concentrated its efforts on managing the Chilean rentier state rather than on demolishing it to build a new state at the service of the majority.. The helmsman of space himself, Jadue, has expressed its will that the murderer Piñera finish his term in the established times and his bench has accompanied key laws such as the "Employment Protection Law" that makes it possible to suspend workers' wages in times of crisis.
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With left speech "serious and responsible", the reality is that it is neat in the administration of the model and trustworthy for the elites. They permanently tempt the different expressions that the street has given in recent months to join in on the path of "what is possible".
The FA, in pieces, it has become a progressive merchandise also disengaged from the economic and political reality of our country, that is rented to cover any store. Far were the enthusiastic young people who knew how to be part of the combative mobilizations of the student movement. Today there are ladies and gentlemen who voted in full swing laws that criminalize protest, signed the pact with the Pinochet right wing that saved the government from 7 %, they think from the correction, with careful twitts and orderly projects that do not move the political ammeter.
If at this point the note ended, It might seem that little or nothing has changed in the country, but we are far from this. We live a new political stage opened in October of 2019 and all these realignments of the political superstructure occur in a scenario of a deep mass rupture with the regime and the old parties. A B-side of politics is emerging and is in dispute: social movements, trade unions and the possibility of building a new left, revolutionary, rebel, feminist, ecological, that reflects this discontent and is also capable of proposing alternatives for profound transformation, avoiding and fighting the reformist deception for which the regime and its forces are working at full steam.
The challenge of building the new, the opportunity to achieve it, the debates that we must give
Outside of this more controlled scenario of the regime, numerous experiences have emerged that reflect in a more real way what is happening in the subsoils of reality. Independent lists and candidates where assembly sectors coexist, expressions of social movements, bureaucratic union leadership, revolt icons, fighters and social fighters, young activists of feminism and dissent, workers. This phenomenon runs throughout the country and has diverse expressions in all districts from north to south, Despite attempts by some sectors to present a univocal line of who are the "Legitimate fighters", could not contain the process of conformation of the lists to that story, Conversely, was widely exceeded, demonstrating various expressions that appeared in the heat of October and in turn complexities for the unity of an electoral system made to privilege the parties.
Is the engine of these phenomena? The social outbreak, the open cycle of mobilizations from the 2006 henceforth with lawsuits that have not been resolved, the repudiation of the old politics, It criticizes not only the right wing and its failed "neoliberal oasis" but also the failed experiences of "21st century socialism" and along the way seek new ways of doing politics, to participate in the great national debates from "one's own territory", making of a weakness "independence" in the sense of political organization a virtue. Like all real phenomena, far from being pure they come combined, with a base that pushes towards radicalism and directions that in many cases propose to measure, brake, dialogue with what is possible, go through insurmountable "stages". But there is a Chile that woke up and in the process of constituting it we will have an opportunity to openly debate about the program we need to transform it and also the political strategy we need to do it. To all that fuzzy conglomerate, organized or not, to the assemblies, social movements, environmental activists, feminists and workers we propose to open this debate. What program for a new Constitution for a Chile of majorities, with what construction methods and with what strategy. Because if October showed us something, it is that a program on paper is not of much use if there is not a strategy that encourages these lines to materialize in reality.
Our proposal to open the debate
There is a program that set up the social outbreak and that has remained in the streets until today, It is the one that indicates the bases of a new Chile, not "anti-neoliberal" but rather "anti-capitalist", that program is the one that made us go out on the street, the demands of a life that can be lived, which is a correlate of “They are not 30 pesos, son 30 years". The trial of Piñera and his government, for his performance in the face of the outbreak and the bankruptcy to which he led the country, the demand that he end his mandate as soon as possible, the non-existent support for his management is more than eloquent on this point. THE end of the AFPs and the creation of a new model where not only the socially produced earnings go to the retired majorities but also where they are play a directive role. The creation of a single national health system, public and free, incorporating the private system to end profit and guarantee decent care and work conditions. Transformation of the educational model, gratuity (that is not synonymous with low quality) for everyone, non-sexist training with a feminist perspective and an appropriate infrastructure among other positive changes. The end of job insecurity, the sub-contract and the corporate dictatorship, the recognition of domestic and care work that women perform as a social mandate -as work- with a salary according to the cost of living that is recognized in the new social security system. The end of sexist violence, worst of pandemics, through emergency plans that consider social prevention as a fundamental scheme, as well as prompt and timely action in cases of violence against women, girls and dissent. For the recovery of all our common goods, Water, the earth and all our natural resources free from corporate looting. That is why we are also going for a Constitution with the workers at the center, with freedom of union association, freedom of protest and this combined with a strong tax and control of large fortunes to finance what is necessary at the service of the majorities. Of course, as we always support it and they have been pillars in our campaign to collect sponsorships for the candidacies of Maura Fajardo Gálvez in the district 12 and Camilo Parada Ortiz in the district 10, feminism and ecosocialism as inalienable identities, to be clear and clear that we do not seek to recover old bureaucratic experiences from the past.
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These are just a few points, Our program is much more extensive and of course all the organizations and social movements have their concerns and programmatic points., We understand that it is key to put them in debate in order to move forward, but advance in what sense?
Well, from the Anti-Capitalist Movement we understand that it is time to set up a new political reference, new since the parties of the "30 years" have given ample evidence of their inability to change, of its infinite power of adaptation to maneuvers and cooking, the dirty kitchen of traditional politics, where everything is "political consideration", without participation of the bases.
This is the fundamental motivation for the presentation of our candidatures, star in the whole process, together with the program, the need for union expressions, feminists, social and popular stop looking in the distorted mirror of bourgeois politics and may dare to go for what the system considers "impossible". Maura and Camilo will be our voice with that message, to social movements, to social activism, to union activism, to the neighbors tired of seeing how politicians get rich without anything changing, those who leave their lives in the fields, factories and companies while a handful of rich men strip us of everything in the closed offices of the ministries and parliament.
We fight for the "impossible", for changing everything, we believe that a historical window has been opened to achieve this. Those of us who patiently organize ourselves for these moments have to live up to it. That is our calling, no exclusions other than fighting to change everything, not as an electoral slogan, but as the fundamental task of the coming months. In the Anticapitalist Movement there is a place to bet on this construction and as the Anticapitalist Movement we promote all the unitary spaces that can favor these debates with the popular forces, feminists, environmental, Revolutionaries who are up for the challenge.
