On Wednesday the Chilean Senate’s Constitution Commission elected Vlado Mirosevic, of the Liberal Party, as its chair. He replaced Pedro Araya, of the PPD, whom the Socialismo Democrático caucus had removed. A change of commission president, not a confirmed rupture of the administrative pact. Dump La Tercera.

Emol: Andrés Longton’s name, RN, put up by Arturo Squella, Republican, fell first: three against, two for. Then Paulina Vodanovic, PS, proposed Mirosevic. Three votes for — Mirosevic, Vodanovic, Claudia Pascual, PC — and two against, Longton and Squella. The official Valparaíso sitting, 12.00–13.00, was called to take note of Araya’s replacement by Mirosevic and to elect the chair, under the Senate rules.

Longton said the pact from the start of the year was dead and that the right would decide at the Senate table and in the commissions. Squella spoke of a four-year word given. A threat, not a voted rupture. Senate president Paulina Núñez, RN, said on Tuesday the pact was by committees, without names. Gustavo Sanhueza, the UDI caucus chief, said each side sorts its own house and that the UDI would not step in.

Juan Luis Castro, PS, the committee chief, said the protocol does not stop a committee changing its own people and that the Senate’s balance of forces had not moved. De Urresti, PS, is next, on the rotation, for the Senate presidency in March 2027. That is the pact’s calendar, not Wednesday’s vote. La Tercera writes that one sheet names Araya at Constitution, while Núñez spoke of another document left open to the committees. Two papers. Do not mix them.

The caucus removed Araya over approaches to the government. Emol wrote about security understandings with President José Antonio Kast’s government. Araya said he was being punished for seeking deals. That is the internal fight. It is not the fall of the pact.

Dump La Tercera. The rewrite rests on La Tercera, Emol and the Senate citation.

Image: the National Congress building, Valparaíso, 3 September 2023, Carlos Figueroa Rojas, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The exterior, not Wednesday’s committee room.

Sources consulted: Comisión de Constitución elige a Mirosevic como nuevo presidente tras remoción de Pedro Araya — Emol.