President Bachelet: “In a democratic system, trust is restored through participation, transparency and oversight”
The President of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, together with Interior and Public Security Minister Jorge Burgos, Finance Minister Rodrigo Valdés, acting Minister Secretary General of the Presidency, Patricia Silva and Minister Secretary General of Government, Marcelo Díaz, signed a constitutional reform bill today to modify laws governing the activities of political parties.
The changes “strengthen the standards of participation and transparency for political parties, so that they can once again fulfill their role as representatives and conduits of citizens’ ideas and initiatives, strengthening our democratic system,” the President said.
The bill expands the range of activities that political parties can engage in to include plebiscites, consultations, political training, cultural and educational projects, seminars, courses, publications, and others. A key focus is the inclusion of 14-to-18 year olds in party activities.
Similarly, the bill modernizes and simplifies procedures for forming a political party, prohibiting public notaries from charging fees for issuing a public record to this effect.
“Each party will have to keep an updated registry of all party members and will be required to remove from the registry the names of members who are deceased, those who are members of another party and those who have been barred, in addition to any members who have not participated in two of the previous three internal party processes,” the President explained.
The bill also extends the rights of party members, for example guaranteeing the right to participation, the right to request information and the right to demand accountability and compliance with the party’s statutes and declaration of principles.
In terms of strengthening the exercise of democracy within political parties, President Bachelet emphasized that the bill “establishes the entities that parties must have in order to ensure member participation. And because we are committed to reaffirming the value of democracy in political activities, the bill stipulates something that is fundamental: all party entities must be elected democratically, respecting the right to individual, equal, free and confidential voting.”
President Bachelet also noted that the bill “establishes the obligation to include more women in governing bodies, so that we can make progress towards gender equality. And parties will no longer be allowed to give orders to their members serving in Congress.”
Finally, the bill allows for two new grounds for the dissolution of parties that are legally recognized in more than one of the country’s administrative regions. The first stipulates that a party must be dissolved if its total number of members in all of the regions where it is recognized is less than 50% of the number required by law to create a political party. The second is that if a party fails to obtain at least 2.5% of all valid votes in the most recent election for the lower house of Congress, or if the number of members in a region declines by 50%, the party will no longer be recognized in that region.
“I believe that in a democratic system, trust is restored through participation, transparency and oversight, and the only way to overcome political difficulties is by expanding democracy,” the President stated.