2023-05-05 13:59:28
After Chile exploded in 2019, the political parties that run the country promised us that everything would change if we changed the Constitution. From the left to the right, everyone said that the Constitutional change was the way to improve life. But that has not happened so far, and it will not happen.
By MIT – Chile
The previous Constitutional Convention was a failure. The New Constitution project was rejected by the majority of the population and it is true that much of this rejection was influenced by the lies created by the owners of the country, which had nothing to do with what was written. However, the Rejection was also victorious because many people came to the conclusion that the New Constitution would not bring effective changes in their lives and were angry with the Boric government, which was already proving to be more of the same (for example, when it rejected the 3rd withdrawal of the AFPs).
Well then, the politicians of the right and “left” did not come up with a better idea than to make a new Constituent Assembly, to try to legitimize the decadent political regime. If the previous Constitutional Convention, which had broad support from the popular movement and generated great expectations, was incapable of changing the country (even if it had won approval, little would have changed, since the new Constitution hardly touched the interests of the 10 families who dominate the country), the new Constitutional Council is worse than a mockery, a complete fraud. Twenty-four “experts”, indicated by Congress, are writing the first draft of the Constitution, which must then be approved by the future “constituent councillors” who will be elected on May 7, of which only parties already constituted will participate, without lists of independents. In other words, they will make us vote for those who have led the country for the last 32 years, adding that the “new” parties that have emerged are even worse than the traditional parties. The People’s Party, for example, is a new right-wing party that defends the neoliberal capitalism that has done so much damage to the majority of the working population.
And the icing on the cake… so that this “Constitutional Council” does not approve anything that affects the owners of the country, there will be a commission of 14 arbitrators, business lawyers, supervising it so that the 12 points already agreed between the parties that they will be the basis of the New Constitution (all maintaining the property of the large economic groups and the current State at their service). In other words, wherever you look at it, the new process has nothing sovereign, popular, or legitimate. The Constitution that is born of this Constituent Process will be as or more illegitimate than that of Pinochet.
Therefore, as workers, we must completely repudiate the new Constituent Process. And in the same way, since there are no candidacies of the working people who have fought and who want to defend proposals for profound changes to Chilean capitalism, we call on the entire working class and the youth to VOTE NULL next May 7th.
| Among the first norms approved by the “Experts” are several attacks on the working class and the people. One of them is about the right to strike. It is proposed that it remain in the Constitution that the only possibility for workers to carry out strikes is in the case of collective negotiations. Although this already works like this today, now it is proposed that it be in the Constitution, a Law more important than the Labor Code that today regulates the right to strike. In the case of the Environment, there are also rules that go in the direction of worsening the legislation, since it is proposed that the protection of the environment should be combined with private economic development, which would open the door even more to collapse the fragile laws that protect the nature today. |
Chilean democracy is tailor-made for the rich
Many activists who were affected by the defeat of the Approval today continue to defend that it is necessary to have a Constituent Assembly. However, they do not take stock of the fact that the previous Constitutional Convention was a form of Constituent Assembly, albeit with important limitations. Why is it important to understand this? Because In Chile there is no possibility of a Constituent Assembly truly controlled and directed by the women residents, the workers, the popular youth, and which will solve the problems of the majority of the population if the current State is not destroyed.. Those who are in power of the State are those who set the limits and powers of any Constituent Assembly.
But this “difficulty” that the people have to dispute spaces within “democracy” is not accidental. It is because “democracy”, in capitalism and particularly in Chile, is very restrictive. There is very little space to conquer changes through this institutional framework, because the entire state apparatus It is at the service of the rich. They control the Parliament, the Justice, the Armed Forces, they corrupt the parties and state officials, etc. And if they lose a bit of political power, they can destabilize the economy through their big companies, banks and the media. The path of bourgeois democracy is closed for social changes. The greatest proof of this was the government of Salvador Allende itself, which tried to carry out major reforms without ending the bourgeois state, and we all know how that story ended.
Therefore, it is necessary that the workers, especially the most conscious activists, understand that with this democracy we will not be able to build a Chile at the service of the majority of the working population. All future parties, even if they arise from social mobilizations and from the “people”, will follow the same path of the Broad Front and PC if they do not intend to challenge the bourgeois state apparatus for power.
To reject the new Constituent Process and prepare the workers to resist!
It is very probable that the new proposed Constitution will be even worse than the current one. This is because in all the countries of the world the big bourgeoisie is making an offensive against the workers: withdrawing rights, privatizing companies, appropriating more and more minerals, water, etc. For this reason, it is necessary for the working class to be attentive to what is being approved and it is essential that the organizations of workers, residents and youth do not allow any further setback.
At MIT we believe that the only way to achieve profound changes at the service of the working class is for the workers to take state power into their own hands. It is evident that this is not going to happen overnight, which is why it is essential that we build a revolutionary party that takes these ideas to every corner of the country, from Arica to Magallanes, at the factory gates, inside the mines, high schools and each worker and agricultural worker. We must build a project for the independent organization of the working class, recovering the unions to fight and not to be in meetings between 4 walls with bourgeois governments and bosses. In the history of Chile there is a long tradition of struggle and organization of the working class that needs to be rebuilt.
The Chilean working class cannot allow the big bourgeoisie to continue dividing us. It is essential that we incorporate migrant workers into our activities, unions, territorial organizations. It is essential that we fight against xenophobia in each workplace, that we patiently discuss with our colleagues who express xenophobic opinions to show them that the enemy is not the migrant but rather the big businessman who plunders the country, be it Chilean, Canadian, or North American. or Chinese.
Chilean workers must also build a joint project with the Mapuche people. This project must have as its fundamental basis the right to self-determination of that people and the return of their lands, stolen by the Chilean State at the service of the business community. This also means rejecting the criminalization of Mapuche organizations and demanding the release of all Chilean and Mapuche political prisoners.
That was the program that our colleague María Rivera defended at the Constitutional Convention and it is the MIT program. A program of struggle in defense of the Chilean working people, migrants and Mapuche. A program to walk towards the reorganization of the working class and to dispute power with the big bourgeoisie and its parties.
#vote #NULL