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March has arrived and again in Chile we will have a year of elections, after the end of the failed constitutional process that we had as a country.
Hence, the regional and municipal elections to be held on October 27 of this year can be seen as a new opportunity to establish certain issues that matter to Chileans.
Citizens maintain enormous disaffection with political parties and with different public organizations, which in many cases have been linked to corruption scandals, as has happened with the case of agreements with foundations and with a long list of municipalities accused and investigated by tax fraud.
For this reason, if there is a central issue in this election, which must be addressed no matter what by all the candidates who present themselves, it is without a doubt what refers to Public Integrity, Probity and Transparency, which should be the pillars of any program that seeks to restore the importance of public service, which is in question.
However, before making any proposal in this regard, we must first point out the current situation in Chile in terms of the fight against corruption, where according to the perception index, there is a certain stagnation according to the latest measurements carried out, which shows us that a lot must be done about it in the country
That said, it can be said that Chile is one of the best-ranked countries in that index at the regional level, only surpassed by Uruguay, but if one reviews the data from the latest Latinobarómetro reports, it shows us a big problem when the people if they believe that there is a decrease in corruption in State institutions.
Consequently, the role of public officials and servants is increasingly seen as worse, as well as the work carried out at the level of political parties, congress and municipalities, where, especially in the latter, it becomes very delicate to be seen as not very transparent and with little control of public resources, since it is the state entity with the greatest access by citizens.
Given this, it becomes essential to continue advancing and strengthening the anti-corruption agenda, which began with the return to democracy, with the formation of the National Public Ethics Commission (1994), the Presidential Advisory Commission for the Strengthening of the Principles of Transparency and Probity (2003), Probity and Transparency Commission (2006), Presidential Anti-Corruption Advisory Council (2015) and the Commission on Probity and Transparency in Corporations and Foundations (2023)
Regarding the last appointed commission, made up of María Jaraquemada, Ramiro Mendoza, Jeannette Von Wolfersdorff, Ignacio Irarrázaval and Francisco Agüero, all of them prepared a report, which laid the foundations for the preparation of the National Public Integrity Strategy, which contains 210 measures to confront corruption and build more trust in institutions.
On the other hand, we must also mention the important role played by organizations such as the Comptroller General of the Republic, in charge of supervising public services and entities (audit, legal, accounting or jurisdictional) and the Permanent Advisory Council for Modernization. of the State, in charge of advising the President of the Republic, both being key actors.
However, although this entire structure of integrity becomes fundamental, it is not enough if the relationship between probity and participation is not made, where progress is also made in the deconcentration of power and greater democratization in decision-making, Otherwise we will only continue reacting and forming commissions in the face of different existing cases of corruption (Davilazo, Mop Gate, Publicam Chile Deportes, Penta, SQM, Caval, Covenants).
In other words, generate new mechanisms of citizen control, which allow bringing them closer to the institutions and the public, so that the State is seen as the result of not only political parties and certain specific organizations, but also of society. civil and those who are part of the country, in all its plurality.
Finally, returning to the discussion about the failed constituent process and linking it with the above, the different factors that influenced its failure, surely the perception of corruption that was had in this regard and the bad experience that is lived every day with the State. Seeing the public as something remote and under permanent suspicion, it took a lot to give credibility to the story in order to approve the new text.
That is why although the first Magna Carta written by the Constitutional Convention, although it enshrined different rights (health, education, housing, security, water), the neoliberal rhetoric that points out that everything public is bad was reinforced with a distrust of institutions. of the State such that the changes were seen as unrealizable and only on paper, which obviously worked against all of us who believed in the process and in a fairer country.
