Although the national government completely rejects the idea of creating a new Magna Carta, at municipal level consultations with the people whether or not they want a constitution are taking hold.
 
This local strategy could overtake the “citizens’ dialogue” proposed by Minister of Social Development and Family Sebastian Sichel and put pressure on Pinera’s government to consider the popular demand for a new constitution.
 
Sichel’s proposal failed impress the opposition, particularly the city mayors, who were assigned a leading role in the process.
 
The key factor is the omission of any provision for a discussion about a new constitution — this has been considered “an attempt to bypass the social movement.”
 
A number of local government (municipio) leaders have begun to put together a new broad-based proposal — to be fine-tuned this week — that will include some mayors who have previously followed the central government line.
 
It incorporates the preparation and implementation of widespread municipal consultations on the new constitution — a kind of plebiscite that aims to put the people at the centre of constitutional power.
 
The mayor of Santiago’s neighbourhood of Recoleta, Daniel Jadue of the Chilean Communist Party, explains that “this is not an idea coming from one single municipality, it is a conversation between a group of mayors working in coordination to get a plebiscite more widely based. We intend to convene the largest number of mayors at national level, so that individuals who are afraid of the people, or participation — basically the right-wingers — understand that this is the way forward.”
 
Pinera’s government emphatically rejected the option of a plebiscite on a new constitution with one official insisting they already have a great participatory solution: the Sichel proposal for a “citizens’ dialogue.”
 
Valparaiso’s Mayor Jorge Sharp (Frente Amplio) has stressed that the demonstrations have shown that constitutional change is a priority for citizens. “The question is who should have power under the constitution and the answer to that is: the people of Chile,” he said, adding: “It has to be the people, and not those who represent the political and economic elites. It is the people who will have to find the answers to rebuild a different country.”
 
Sharp’s idea is not supported throughout the political spectrum, but there is consensus among the opposition parties regarding the need for a new constitution. The stumbling block is in how to go about it.
 
“If a mayor, councillor, or public servant wants to play a role in this constitutional process, they must have the same possibility of doing so as the president of a neighbourhood committee, an academic, a small businesswoman/man, or parent,” Sharp emphasises.
 
But as the Mayor of Independencia (Santiago Metropolitan Region), Gonzalo Duran, points out: “The government either does not understand or does not wish to abandon a dogmatic way of thinking regarding the economy and the role of citizens.”
 
For Jadue, Pinera is seeking to “preserve the constitution which protects the model of the present dictatorship. It hides a fear of popular democracy.”
 
Sharp has his doubts. “The government and the right [Chile Vamos — the Let’s Go Chile coalition of four centre-right and right-wing parties] will want to promote any change to the constitution. They have justified and worked with it for 40 years. Why would they want to change it? People have protested for weeks and there has been no response indicating that the right really did listen,” he says.
 
Sharp’s adviser, anthropologist Rodrigo Ruiz who’s considered an ideologue of the centre-left, points out that the Pinera’s social contract “does not imply an agreement, precisely because it involves a permanent suppression of any democratic process from which a social contract can emerge.”
 
Sharp concludes that “for the first time in our history, we have the possibility of defining a constitution in a democracy and in peace based on dialogue.”
 
Sichel’s proposal for a “citizens’ dialogue” is based on the seven-point suggestion by President Pinera. The process is to be led by a “steering group,” composed of local authorities, social leaders, representatives of universities and international specialists. It will be chaired by Sichel himself and its composition must be approved by Pinera.
 
The proposal states that 10 major issues will be reviewed, among them education, housing, pensions, health, safety, basic services (access and prices), work and income and “others.”
 
In the document Sichel does not provide any details regarding the question of the new constitution or subsequent consultation on the proposals through the citizens’ dialogue. Furthermore, it’s not legally binding.
 
Jadue made the point that Pinera’s government “said that we, as mayors, are going to participate, but a large group of us are not prepared to cover up the government’s lack of political will.
 
“If they do not assure us that it is to be legally binding and that it addresses matters beyond just the social agenda of the government, I at least, and several colleagues, will not participate in something like this,” he added.
 
For Duran, “it makes no sense to set up dialogues and meetings that do not adequately address the basic underlying and structural issues.”
 
Jadue is clear: “We are not prepared to lend ourselves to the government's game and end up demobilising our citizens” and stresses that this proposal “is an attempt to bypass the social movement.”
 
This is an edited version of the article which first appeared in el mostrador (The Counter), a Chilean online newspaper, on November 6 2019. Translated by P Turpin.