With seconds of difference, this morning the Minister of the Interior arrived at the La Moneda Cultural Center, Carolina Toháand the mayor of Providencia, Evelyn Mattheito participate in the seminar “A pact for security”, where a document with 100 proposals from the Horizontal study center to confront the security crisis in the country was presented.
Thus, the instance marked a first face to face between the eventual letters of the ruling party and the opposition that are beginning to emerge as presidential candidates.
In fact, after finishing the meeting, when asked about the possibility of facing Tohá in next year’s election, the municipal leader assured -with a laugh- that “two women would be good.” This after the Secretary of State did not rule out meeting Matthei again in an eventual campaign to reach La Moneda.
“I have met Mayor Matthei a thousand times, I am probably going to meet a thousand more times (…) In what situation, life will tell. We don’t know that, time will tell,” said Tohá.
The seminar began with a few words from the former Minister of the Interior and director of the study center, Gonzalo Blumel, who stated that the weakening of the legitimacy of State forces to combat violence and the penetration of transnational organized crime are the two main factors that affect the security crisis facing the country. In that sense, he assured that the document seeks to contribute to the formation of a security pact.
After her intervention, to applause, the municipal head of Providencia and presidential figure of Chile Vamos (UDI, RN and Evópoli), began valuing the work carried out by the study center. In this regard, she emphasized, alluding to Tohá, that “this is a matter of State And, Madam Minister, I have the impression that you have already seen in Congress that we are willing to collaborate in everything possible.”
Along these lines, he proposed defining which measures in the document can be implemented quickly, through administrative decrees and budget readjustments, with the aim that they can be prioritized in the short term.
“How do we achieve that in today’s Chile, which has political restrictions, which has budgetary restrictions, in which people are now asking for concrete measures and results, how do we manage from all these 100 measures to find maybe 8, 10, that can be implemented? (…) in an administrative manner,” he stated in the instance.
And he added that “This is not a problem of the Boric government or the next government, this is an issue for all Chileans and I want to tell you that, to those who try to use this politically to win some easy votes, what they are doing is They are finally condemning Chile that we fall into the hands of drug traffickers, of narcoterrorism. In the hands of organized crime and that is unacceptable.”
Subsequently – and after a brief presentation of some of the measures in the document – it was the turn of the chief of staff, who assured that the political debate on security has been made difficult by the deficiencies of the political system.
In this regard, he assured that “the problem is that The public debate, the political debate, occurs in another field, it occurs in a field in which evidence counts for little, it occurs in a field in which the medium term counts for nothing, and it occurs in a field where what is important is only immediately obtain a response and a reaction from public opinion”.
Along these lines, he stressed that “a fundamental thing we have to do is focus on the things on which we have agreements.”
“Signing a document with lists of things is very easy, there is a lot of agreement on that, but leading the parliamentary debate to be coherent with that is very difficult,” he noted.
Regarding the text, she indicated that it was reviewed by her and her team and assured that of the 100 proposals, 65 have already been completed or are being worked on, approximately 12 are partially in development and there are only ten that are not yet being acted upon.
Finally, he invited the Horizontal team to sit down with the Ministry of the Interior to deepen the security agenda and its proposals.
The document was worked on by nine experts -among which stand out Blumel; the former undersecretary of the Interior, Juan Francisco Galli; and the former director of the Gendarmerie, Christian Alveal– and considers some proposals such as establishing the Ministry of Public Security, establishing an integrated system of international cooperation, building high-security prison facilities, forming an anti-corruption unit in the Gendarmerie, among others.
The deputy also arrived at the instance Diego Schalper (RN) and the exconventional Hernán Larraín Matte (Evópoli). In addition, former Undersecretary Galli, the mayor of Vitacura, Camila Merino, and the former Minister of the Interior Jorge Burgos.
