CHILE: Bachelet Sends Draft Of New Constitution To Congress

(RTTNews) - Chilean President Michelle Bachelet is about to send Congress the draft of a new Constitution for the South American country, as announced in a national broadcasting network on Monday. The bill lands in Congress only five days before the end of Bachelet's tenure.

"We must aspire to more and not stay with a legal body that does not relate to our times and the future we all want to build," the president said on national television.

The initiative intends to, among other things, grant free access to public education, reach wage equality between men and women, grant workers the right to carry out strikes, as well as recognizing the indigenous peoples of Chile.

Bachelet said that a balance between government and Congress would be established to allow democracy to work, as well as the elimination of the need of a supermajority for the approval of the legislation.

Regarding social rights, the head of state said that "the draft Constitution approaches citizen demands for a more equitable society, in which the dignity of all is better protected."

On Sunday, the left-winger Bachelet will be replaced as president by conservative leader Sebastian Piñera, a billionaire and former president elected for a new term amid promises of "perfecting" the constitution if a climate of political union prevails during his tenure.

The current Chilean Constitution is an inheritance of the right-wing dictatorship led by the late General Augusto Pinochet between 1973 and 1990. Although significant changes have been made since the return of democracy, Bachelet and others have argued that it must be fully reformulated.