A feminist activist and a member of the Communist Party, Bárbara Sepúlveda, 36, is one of the members of the Constituent Assembly in Chile. Graduated in law at the University of Chile, with a postgraduate degree in gender studies at the London School of Economics, she is divided between legislative sessions and meetings with the population, which she promotes in parks and squares in different regions of the country.
AT leaf Sepúlveda spoke about the impact that the result of the presidential run-off may have in his country, scheduled for December 19, between the ultra-rightist José Antonio Kast and the leftist Gabriel Boric.
“The elected Congress offers many challenges for the Constituent Assembly, but the most important will be the definition of the president, because it will bring political will to the implementation of the new Charter.”
Mrs. Do you believe that the formation of the Congress can harm the work of the Constituent Assembly? There are important things to emphasize about Congress. First, the fact that the representation of women has increased from 23% to 36%. It’s still not the 50% we want, but it’s a step forward. In the Senate, even though the political forces are tied, we have the arrival of independent names, such as Fabiola Campillai [que ficou cega na repressão aos protestos de 2019] and the return of the Communist Party.
However, it seems to be a Congress that is not willing to collaborate with the Constituent Assembly with the necessary agility, due to a large presence of the right and leaders who voted against the drafting of the new Constitution. We need Congress for various issues, to regulate consultations that we want to make to the population on issues that have not reached the two-thirds needed to be transformed into law, and to approve budget resources from the Constituent Assembly. The organization and implementation of the referendum that will decide whether the Charter actually enters into force is also up to Parliament. Political goodwill will be needed, and it is unclear whether it exists in the elected Congress.
In theory, the work of the Constituent Assembly will not be altered by a change of president, but we know that in practice this is not the case. What is the main difference between Boric and Kast in relation to the Constituent Assembly? Boric is part of that movement that led to the Constituent Assembly, and his support will be very important if he is elected. Kast, on the other hand, as much as he is moderating his speech for electoral reasons, should not change his position in relation to the Assembly. He used the constituent process as an enemy in the campaign, fought for the “no” to win the plebiscite and insulted the Constituent Assembly. He wants the 1981 Constitution to be maintained.
This can be evident when we have the Charter ready and it is put to the vote. From the role of president, Kast will be able to campaign for rejection, and we may lose the strength that the movement has had since 2019. For now, we have the streets in our favor. Elected kast can impact citizens’ choice, because it will have the power and space to attack the legitimacy of our work.
How do you interpret the fact that Kast came in first in the first shift? The surprise with the result has to do with the fact that our political reading of the Chilean context is not the same as that of the population. The people who carried out the 2019 protests were from a very politicized sector that has been in this struggle for decades. The other sector that has emerged with force is one that was not politicized, but one that was suffering the effects of neoliberalism. They realize that there is a State that has abandoned them, that there is no access to good health and good education, that they are suffering because they are unemployed, because they feel that immigrants are stealing their work. For this non-politicized sector, the context does not translate into a vote for the left.
In this I believe that Kast was very intelligent, because he was able to identify a sector of the population that was sensitive to a discourse that, we know, is not right, but very direct in relation to economic stability and security.
Does not agree with the idea that the Chilean is turning to the right? I don’t think the Chileans voting for Kast are on the right-wing or that they share everything he thinks. They vote for a hard-line speech against delinquency because it’s an issue of real concern. And then Kast uses the same feature as [Donald] Trump: points to immigration as the source of all problems. While the enemy that Kast paints is real, what the left points out is more abstract, it is structural, it is the economic system, it is capitalism, it is patriarchy. It is not easy to see embodied in an everyday theme.
If the Constituent Assembly is a reality, why are there still protests in Santiago every Friday? Today there is no march for things that have to do with the Constituent Assembly. They are marching because the disagreement against the government of Sebastián Piñera is enormous, and he has been giving reasons. The militarization of the Araucanía region is one of them, and there is also the economic crisis, the impact of the pandemic, the very figure of a president who is revealing himself as someone who got privileges for being president. These are justified protests, the solution of which no longer has to do with the Constituent Assembly and are addressed directly to Piñera.
Barbara Sepulveda
- Age: 36
- Place of birth: Las Condes (Chile)
- Education: Graduated in Law from the University of Chile, with a postgraduate degree in Gender Studies from the London School of Economics
- Career: Member of the Constituent Assembly (2021), Professor of Constitutional Law at the Alberto Hurtado University, Executive Director of the Association of Feminist Lawyers of Chile
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