This morning the still deputy Thomas of Rementería (PS) refined the last details to assume as a senator. He left the day buying a suit to swear this afternoon in the upper house.
However, its oath has a footnote. His commitment is only to culminate the mandate of the dismissed senator Isabel Allende until March 2026. After that the future of De Rementería is open.
He has said that in August- placing to present candidacies to Parliament- he will decide whether he will apply for the Senate by the Valparaíso region or re-elected as a deputy. That is, this new investiture has a return passage if the political, electoral and personal conditions advise it.
His arrival in the upper house was given after the Constitutional Court dismissed the historic figure of the Socialist party, the former senator Allende, for being involved – in his quality of co -ownership – in the failed sale of his father’s house, the former president president Salvador Allende.
By impediment of the Constitution, and after the review of the requirement raised by deputies of opposition to the TC, this body ruled the cessation of the position of the once representative of the Valparaíso region.
In the previous days, of Rementería has held various conversations with members of the PS senators bench, particularly with the president of the party, Paulina Vodanovic; con Alfonso de Urresti, José Miguel Insulza and the head of the bench, Juan Luis Castro.
The dialogues, according to the still deputy to this medium, have been with the objective of internalizing the legislative work of the Upper House, since it has some differences with what is done in the Chamber. In that line, from the legislative aspect, of Rementeria ensures that it has a particular interest in the commission of water resources, but that this must be resolved administratively, tasks that have fallen in Castro as head of the PS committee.
In that sense, the legislator ensures that he has received the help of his future colleagues, who have guided him and helped him for installation. “I hope to show you the work I did in the camera,” he says about it.
As for the Urresti senator, who had shown resistance to the arrival of De Rementería to the Upper House, the deputy says: “I never felt roughness from Alfonso”, complementing that he has always had a good relationship with him and that he has helped him in environmental issues for the work he has played in the Chamber.
Although, according to De Rementería, he arrives with “humility” to the Senate, he has also seen that he is interested in some issues. In addition to water resources, the deputy closely follows foreign relations, commission of which he is part of the Chamber, and even had to preside; Hence I had insulce dialogues in this regard.
As for the teams, the parliamentarian will arrive with his chief of cabinet, Luis San Martínand the rest of the squad will be completed with a mixture of the staff of the former senator Allende. In fact, with the former parliamentary they shared a work office in the center of Valparaíso, which he will continue to occupy and that, he says, he hopes that Arturo Barrios will be installed right there when he assumes as a deputy.
In its first session in the Upper House, which will be counting on the 16.00 today, it has no special message or symbolism, nor any speech, as protocol is not contemplated. “I am quite sober in my work.”
Stony arrival to the Senate
The Assumption of Rementería was preceded by a string of administrative and political errors, in addition to internal quarrels, which even led Isabel Allende to threaten her resignation to the party.
While the ex -senator and the PS considered the names of the leaders Andrés Santander and Arturo Barrios, the community was inclined to a letter that could have a greater electoral projection to try to retain the senatorial quota by the Valparaíso region that Allende achieved in 2018.
-In fact, Allende’s original aspiration was that her niece, the former Minister of Defense Mayan Fernández, would have competed for her senator seat.
However, Fernández herself declined the proposal and did not resign in November 2024, depending on the deadline imposed by the Constitution to the authorities that would have wanted to run in the parliamentary elections of the end of the year.
The problem is that this socialist decision indirectly pushes from Rementeria to run to the Senate, which leaves it in a complicated personal and political crossroads, because their partner, the deputy Karol Cariola (PC), with whom they have just been parents, it was also proclaimed by the communist leadership as a candidate for the Upper House for the same region of Valparaíso.
If of Rementería (PS) and Cariola (PC) are finally presented as Senate candidates for the same constituency, the fact would produce an unpublished electoral competition. “A family inability,” defines a party leader.
Therefore, for several parliamentarians, even from the right, it was an open secret that would not apply for the senatorial election in the end and would return to the camera.
In Congress it was speculated that his original idea was to gain visibility in his new investiture to re -elected himself as a deputy, in the event that greater popularity would not only allow him to re -elect more easily, but also could drag another socialist.
That was, additionally, to advance a negotiation so that the PS achieved two quotas in the list of deputies in exchange for giving the candidacy for senator for Valparaíso.
That plan, however, was entrusting into powers of the PS Directive, which also warned De Rementería that if he accepted Allende’s quota, he had to compete to the Senate, regardless of whether he lost in that adventure. The reason? There were about 100 million pesos at stake for the monetary advance to finance campaigns that the Electoral Service was going to deliver to the PS for the mere fact of seeking to retain his seat in the region. According to the electoral legislation, the parties can ask for an advance of fiscal money equivalent to the votes that the candidates out of that community in the last election. In view of the fact that Valparaíso is the most inhabited region of the next elections, for the Socialists it is a region that is not tradable.
Another conflict also emerged. If he assumed in the Senate (decision that left several injured), he left a vacancy to deputy who immediately aroused the interest of the “lots” of the community. Some wanted to propose a local figure with projection, others intended to install a national or historical face, such as Arturo Barrios, who was finally chosen.
In case there were few problems, the Socialist Directive made two formal mistakes.
First, the letter was sent with the designation of De Rementería (on Friday, April 9) before Allende’s vacancy from the notification of the Constitutional Court ruling (which just happened on Tuesday, April 15 at 4:00 p.m.). For these purposes, it should inevitably be given, before all, an institutional exchange of trades from the Senate, to Servel and the PS.
The second error, meanwhile, was to have sent the first letter without the ratification of the Political Commission or the Central Committee as required by law. This forced to withdraw that letter. The formal withdrawal of that designation, in the midst of internal tensions, was what generated the discomfort of Allende and De Rementería, who came to decline his designation.
To prevent the conflict from continuing to climb, the directive that presides over the senator Paulina Vodanovicwith the help of some deputies, he managed to convince De Rementería to accept the offer again.
In any case, the crisis could only be deactivated in an emergency meeting between the board and parliamentarians held on Wednesday, April 16 in the Senate Vice Presidency dining room, which was attended by Rementería, Barrios and Andrés Santander. After the meeting, it was agreed that the Buenos Aires deputy inherited the senatorial quota, as was Allende’s desire, and that Barrios, who would assume in May, stay with the quota in the chamber. That proposal was ratified the next day by the PS Political Commission.
 assumes in the Senate with the Ticket of (an eventual) return to the camera){kind=link}