(Published in The Nation, April 9.2008)
At the time the lobby project, submitted by Members and Jorge Burgos Tohá Carolina in 2002, was ready to be enacted, the new Senate President Adolfo Zaldívar announced a crackdown aimed to specify either senators and their interest, which by law must be declared. The combination of this background the opportunity to bring to the fore public transparency of the parliamentary-and by extension the political role "in Chile. This is because even if Zaldívar is right, parliamentarians, as you said the comptroller Ramiro Mendoza, act fairly with impunity and protected by law, where the laws of transparency and integrity do not alter your sound sleep and his "good act."
To this point has been reached regarding the deputy Burgos acknowledged that the situation in Congress is "opaque" and that often has been "gentlemen" to monitor how each MP votes given project, which is undoubtedly a embarrassment to anyone who believes in deepening democracy. The situation is even darker for those who roam in the halls of the legislature and try to influence the will of the elected representatives of the people, to abandon the public does not assume such a condition. A few months ago, Que Pasa interviewed the twelve best-known lobbying firms in the country: nine said they did not undertake this activity. Only Imaginacción, Enrique Correa, said recognize and understand that defending particular interests. Astonishing degree of impunity for doing such a factor.
Beyond the lobby regulation more transparent and thus seeks to enshrine the "lesser evil"-which does not and can not mean that this mechanism is good and desirable, also struck by the dual role of several reputable lobbyists who exert the while political responsibilities (public good) while earning their income from representing private interests. If you are advisers of high authorities of the Republic if they apply to elected positions or leading civic organizations, how can the city tell where is the public interest and where the private sector? When agents of the higher interests of the country or when they do it to encourage customers with whom they work? The problem is that when an active part in politics becomes the comparative advantage of a lobbyist, we entered an area extremely dangerous to the public interest.
In what has to do with Congress, we can say responsibly that, so far, the institution has not done anything to regulate itself, leaving limits extremely tenuous between the lobby, influence peddling and the open operation for private or personal interests. Regarding the latter, the Constitutional Act which are subject parliamentarians, is clear: the obligation not to act, to not vote and a fortiori not to deal with laws that are committed to them or their relatives to the third degree inbreeding. However, failing this legal provision has not had any consequences in practice for MPs, who not infrequently have legislated in favor of their own interests. Adolfo Zaldívar
knows plenty, since his brother Andrew to be Senate President and himself the owner of the DC and member of the Committee on Fisheries, handled the call Fisheries Act in 2002 that favored the company Eperva Angelini group, in which 18 family members were shareholders Zaldívar. Adolfo Zaldívar not abstained from voting in favor of the law. For none of the senators there was the slightest consequence. One continued to be chairman of the Senate and vice president of Chile and the other parliamentary and today it is still new president of the Senate.
welcome, therefore, the progress of the lobby law and the proposal of Senator Zaldivar the sake of transparency. Chile needs to develop its democracy not only by overcoming the binomial system but also with measures like these, which include public access to public information, political funding and the possibility of revoking mandates citizen who has been chosen as seriously injured trust those who took him to victory. Let's see how far you can advance the so-called political class in this direction.
Marcel Claude, an economist.
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