After
an uninterrupted 22-hour session
, the Chamber of Deputies of Chile approved an impeachment of President Sebastián Piñera for his alleged participation in the sale of a mine, revealed by the 'Pandora Papers'. The procedure, which must now pass in the Senate, was approved with 78 votes in favor, 67 against and three abstentions.
The story revealed by the 'Panama Papers' concerns the sale, in 2010, by the Piñera-Morel family to the entrepreneur Carlos Alberto Délano, of the Dominga mine, with an adjoining port,
through a tax haven
.
The proceeding, presented by a coalition of opposing parties, will now be examined by the Senate which will be able to confirm it with 2/3 of the votes.
To achieve this, the opposition, observes Radio BioBio, will have to convince at least five senators who currently support the government to vote in favor.
The Chilean media stressed that to have the impeachment approved with just a majority vote,
the socialist deputy Jaime Naranjo made a 15-hour speech.
This allowed the debate to go beyond midnight and therefore to my colleague Giorgio Jackson, who was in quarantine for Covid, to be able to enter the classroom and cast the necessary favorable vote.
