New GS of the Communist Party of Chile, Bárbara Figueroa, speaks in 2021 - Mediabanco, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
The Communist Party of Chile chose Bárbara Figueroa, current ambassador to Argentina as its new General Secretary on Sunday, September 24 while also picking Lautaro Carmona as its new President on Sunday to replace Guillermo Teillier, who held that position for 18 years until his death on August 29. Figueroa resigned from her diplomatic post to take on the role.
This was done at the XV Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Chile the "first plenary session of the Central Committee after the death of our President Guillermo Teillier del Valle, to whom we pay tribute recognizing the decisive contribution he had in the advancement of our policy" according to the party.
The party released a statement outlining the various resolutions and decisions of the plenary session.
Guillermo Teillier del Valle embodied, during his career, a deep commitment to struggle at different times in the history of our country and always put the interests of the people and the demands of social movements at the center of his action.
In the plenary we pay tribute to three comrades who died recently, we refer to who was President of the Supreme Court, comrade José Figueroa Jorquera, who was also one of the first communist mayors after the dictatorship and comrade Orlando Bahamonde BarrÃa, who played a great role in the articulation of the struggle against the Pinochet dictatorship, also Elcira Navarro Urzua, outstanding and convinced militant in her work in El Siglo.
A delegation is sent to attend on Wednesday 27 at 10:00 am, an act of homage in Caletones, to Julio Orlando Muñoz Otárola, arrested disappeared in 1987, militant of the Manuel RodrÃguez Patriotic Front.
We value the activities carried out and those that will be carried out within the framework of the 50 years, the depth they had and the need to persist in truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-repetition. We value the implementation of the national search plan, we need to find and know what happened to each and every one of our colleagues. In perspective we firmly believe that we must articulate a campaign against denialism.
In this context, after a broad and fraternal discussion, we have taken the decision to appoint our two unipersonal authorities. Appointing comrade Lautaro Carmona as President and comrade Bárbara Figueroa as Secretary General. The plenary of the CC pronounced itself in accordance with the name of Luciana Cortez member of the Supreme Court, as president of this, in a next Plenary of the CC we will complete the pending quotas.
This represents a continuity, projection and deepening of the political line of the Party, which is why both have the confidence of the Central Committee and the Party as a whole. Its role will be oriented to push the democratic and social transformations that the people demand, for this it is essential to support with all our collective capacities the government of President Gabriel Boric, government of which we are part. We are convinced that it is possible to materialize the aspirations of the social movements and the people during this government.
We approve, as indicated in our statutes, to start the XXVII National Congress of the Party post-plebiscite. Thus, a profound debate will begin on our politics, which will be faced with the challenge of defending democracy and peace, conquering greater social rights, which are threatened by neo-fascist forces at national and global level. To this end, we will promote the construction of an articulation of broad, unitary and democratic forces, based on our party identity, that can sustain this process and confront conservative forces. This congress process contemplates the cellular, communal, regional stage and finally the Congress
Within the framework of the discussion of the 2024 national budget, we propose that it be oriented mainly to solve the immediate economic and social problems of the popular sectors, on which the main weight of the economic situation that the country is going through falls. We call on our government, the parliament, the senate to put this as a centrality in the debate.
The Central Committee supports the action of our constitutional advisors Karen Araya and Fernando Viveros, and the expert commissioner Alexis Cortés, who have given a frontal fight to the ultraconservative onslaught.
The plenum of the Central Committee of the Party calls to be alert to the anti-people and anti-rights norms that have been approved by the majority of the Constitutional Council made up of the right and the extreme right. This is reflected in the profound setbacks experienced in terms of women's reproductive rights, the right to strike of workers, human rights, constitutionalization of the ISAPRES and AFP, among other matters, which seek to further weaken the State as guarantor of social rights, which means attacking the popular will that mandated an end to the dictatorial constitution and, on the contrary, what they have done is deepen the Pinochet character of the Constitution.
It is proposed to send the Political Commission to finish constituting the Convocation Team, where there are already proposed names, as well as the Organizational Team of the Congress, which requires the participation and commitment of the Central Committee.
The plenary resolves to carry out all the steps and actions to relieve the demand for truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-repetition, of the victims of irregular adoptions promoted by several groups, among them, the group Children and Mothers of Silence, considering these as violations of human rights.