Chile: What Constituent Assembly is needed to change everything?

We reproduce the new flyer of the comrades of the Chilean Movimiento Anticapitalista.

After 4 weeks of struggle, Piñera and all the traditional parties had to recognize it: this people demands a new Constitution. We demand to throw out the Pinochet Constitution. However, are the politicians of the traditional parties thinking about the same Constitution that the people demand? In the streets, in assemblies, town halls, barricades and marches, as a people we are very clear: we want a new Constitution to have no more AFP; public, free and quality education and health care; to judge all the crimes of the dictatorship and of this false democracy; to obtain all the rights of women and native nationalities. We want a new Constitution for a Chile economically independent of corporations and parasitic entrepreneurs. A Constitution that prohibits clear-cut logging and mega-mining, that defends water and the mountains as common goods. A Constitution to have salaries equal to the cost of living and all labor rights, and a Chile of those who work, not of the parasites that exploit us. To reach these substantive changes, the Constituent Assembly that is required must be:

1 Free: to discuss all issues, without pacts behind the backs of the mobilized people.

2 Sovereign: with decision-making power to make all determinations in economic, political or social matters.

3 Plurinational: whose principle is the right to self-determination.

4 Democratic: formed by the election of deputies under a new electoral regulation. With a representative elected for every 10 thousand inhabitants, taking the country as a single district; with workers, youth, residents and natives over 14 years of age eligible to be elected.

No to the pact in Congress against the people

All the parties that say they oppose Piñera propose a referendum for the people to vote on whether or not they want a new Constitution (we have been saying this for weeks on the streets!). From the Christian Democrats to the Communist Party and the Broad Front, they say that the plebiscite and the new Constitution have to happen with the murderer Piñera in office. We ask you: will Piñera be able to elaborate a constitution that abolishes all the privileges the big business, the military and the priests? Are the Communist Party and the Broad Front negotiating a pact with the right behind the mobilized people? Be careful, because this people no longer believes in that Congress, in traditional parties and in all those responsible for the past 30 years. Therefore, against the pact with the right that the Concertación and the so-called “left” are preparing in Congress, we have to oppose a new general strike, this time indefinitely until Piñera and his accomplices leave.

And if Piñera leaves: who rules?

Many people, when they hear us raise these ideas, ask themselves “who can rule if not the usual parties?” We are clear: we have to prepare a government of those who have never governed: the working class and the people. No one better than those who move everything in the country to lead the government. Where is it written that only big businessmen or politicians in suits and ties are fit to rule? They defend their interests. That’s how we got here (and suffered these 30 years). We have to govern through our own democratic organizations: independent and combative unions, assemblies and councils. And thus create a real democracy, of the majority, not of the 1% that lives from our efforts.

A new Chile, a new left: anti-capitalist, feminist and ecosocialist

To fight the right seriously, a new project of the left is needed. It cannot be lukewarm, it cannot adapt to the decadent institutions of this democracy of the rich and repressors. A left that does not sell the false illusion of “capitalism with a human face” is needed. Anti-capitalism is needed on the left. It has to be profoundly feminist and defend a model of development without pollution, an ecosocialist model. It must have the purpose of uniting peoples over national borders. In Chile we build the Movimiento Anticapitalista, a young militant force that has these goals. And we are part of an international organization: the International Socialist League. In the end, the important thing is for many of us who are fighting side by side all these weeks to take another step: make politics for the 99%.

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Movimiento Anticapitalista / Liga Internacional Socialista