The epidemiologist Maria Elisa Quinteros was elected on Wednesday the new president of the Constitutional Convention of Chile in charge of drafting a new constitution to replace the current one inherited from the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990).
After two session days and nine rounds of voting on Tuesday and Wednesday morning, the members of the Constituent Assembly chose Maria Elisa Quinteros to replace, as provided for in the texts, the Mapuche linguist Elisa Loncon who chaired the Convention since its installation on July 4 .
See also Presidential in Chile: the crimes of Pinochet in the background
"We hope that we can conduct this process wisely,"
said the one who has won the support of a majority of independents like herself.
The Convention has nine months, with a possibility of an extension of three months - to draft the new fundamental text which must be validated in a compulsory referendum which will be called by the government of the elected left-wing president, Gabriel Boric, who will take his duties on March 11.
In the event of rejection, the current text will remain in force.
The 155 members of the Constituent Assembly were elected in a double ballot on May 15 and 16, 2021, on a parity basis and with 17 seats reserved for indigenous peoples. The new Constituents appeared to be very heterogeneous. Independent candidates represent more than 40% of elected officials, to the detriment of the lists put together by the traditional parties which are in the minority. No political force has the necessary third party to veto, and deliberations must be approved by two thirds.
The drafting of the new Constitution appeared as an institutional solution to the social demonstrations which erupted in the country in October 2019. Many demonstrators denounced the text, voted in 1980, as the backbone of the ultraliberal economic system set up under Augusto Pinochet and a brake on any social reform.
