One million two hundred thousand
Carlos Pérez Soto
One million two hundred thousand people in Santiago, hundreds of thousands more in the regions, in every city, in every town in Chile. It's time to take action.
A political coup: the president of the republic must resign.
An institutional coup: that a Constituent Assembly be elected.
A socio-economic blow: dismantling the neoliberal economy.
The president and all his ministers should resign. A provisional government should be formed to call for simultaneous presidential, parliamentary, gubernatorial, council, and mayoral elections. The provisional government's priority should be to draft and pass a law calling for the election of a Constituent Assembly. The provisional ministries' priority should be to implement a provisional social program addressing the most urgent problems accumulated by the economic model: the minimum wage, basic pensions, transportation costs, housing debt, and personal debt to retailers and banks.
Let a democratic and participatory Constituent Assembly be elected. Through proportional voting, without binomial systems or appointed delegates. Let it deliberate directly, with advisors for the delegates, but without expert committees imposing conditions. Let it discuss constitutional alternatives, not a draft written beforehand behind closed doors. Let it include mechanisms for citizen participation and oversight. Let all its discussions be public, and let citizen groups submit proposed articles. A Constituent Assembly in which all issues not approved by at least two-thirds of the delegates are submitted to a plebiscite. Let it submit a constitutional draft with alternatives to a plebiscite, not a closed text. Let it submit the final version to another plebiscite.
We want a democratic Constituent Assembly. It is unacceptable for parliament to declare itself the constituent power. We cannot accept a proposed constitution drafted by “experts” or a “consensus commission.” We cannot accept a constitutional plebiscite in which we simply have to say yes or no to a closed text, drawn up behind closed doors. We cannot accept a simple process of “structural reforms” to the Pinochet-Lagos Constitution. We cannot accept that, once again, we are presented with a grandiose process in which everything seems to change, yet the essential elements remain the same—everything that benefits the powers that have maintained the neoliberal economy, the powers that have colonized our lives, that have handed over our natural resources to foreign capital, that have made work precarious and created a miserable pension system.
It is necessary to dismantle the neoliberal economic system that has been destroying our lives. To dismantle it at its root. It is necessary to target the foundations of the system, not just a set of “reforms.” A new “social agenda” that leaves the foundations of the model untouched is unacceptable. A set of “national unity” or “social emergency” laws that are once again tainted by the wretched fine print of neoliberalism is unacceptable.
A core set of strategic demands must be formulated that can always be maintained, below the partial or local demands, as a foundation from which all local or partial demands are viable and have structural meaning.
This strategic core must include, at a minimum:
1. The implementation of a general policy of increasing wages and regularizing working hours, on the one hand, and the implementation of a policy of reducing job insecurity in partnership with micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, on the other.
2. The end of the policy of concessions regarding natural commons: effective renationalization of all those considered strategic, guaranteeing social, democratic and sustainable use, and ensuring the existence of current natural commons for future generations.
3. The end of all state support, guarantee or endorsement of the largest private debts: the withdrawal and repeal of all international agreements that oblige us to do so.
4. The end of tax avoidance policies that benefit big capital and the establishment of real tax rates for banks and large companies.
5. The end of the private management system of pension funds and its replacement by a solidarity-based distribution system with tripartite financing, managed by the State and by the contributors.
6. The end of neoliberal management systems for state agencies and enterprises: a radical reform of the statutes of “autonomy” of state-owned enterprises. In their place, implement a decentralized and radically democratic system of state administration.
7. The end of all policies of subsidies and concessions in health, education, transport, housing and culture: a State that effectively guarantees social rights, assuming their direct and decentralized fulfillment through the municipalities;
8. End to the anti-democratic and counter-majoritarian bodies and institutions established in the current institutional framework: Constitutional Court, autonomy of the Central Bank, autonomy of the Armed Forces.
9. Review and repeal of all free trade agreements that compromise the country's financial, food, and technological sovereignty.
10. That the new Political Constitution contemplates profound democratic demands: binding plebiscites, recall of mandates, radical transparency of the acts of the State, popular initiative of law, a policy of radical decentralization of the management and redistribution of state spending, a policy of social usufruct of common goods.
We are the majority. This country is ours. We are the ones who generate all the wealth and value produced on this land. We have the right to stop being deceived. We have the right to live our lives with dignity. It's time to say enough is enough and to take action.
Santiago de Chile
26th October 2019
