The head of state is suspected of conflict of interest in the sale of a mining company in 2010, carried out in a tax haven, and revealed by the “Pandora Papers”.
Le Monde with AFP
The Senate of Chile voted, Tuesday, November 16, against the dismissal of President Sebastian Piñera, suspected of conflict of interest in the sale of a mining company in 2010. The case had been revealed by the “Pandora Papers “.
This vote puts an end to the dismissal procedure that had been approved last week by the Chamber of Deputies, where the opposition is the majority. In the Senate, also dominated by the opposition, a two-thirds majority, or 29 votes, was necessary. But only 24 senators voted for dismissal, against and one abstained.
“The Defense has categorically dismantled each of the facts outlined in the reasons for this political trial,” said Senator Pro-Piñera Francisco Chahuan. The lawyer of the Head of State, Jorge Galvez, had stated at the beginning of the session to the Senate that the Prosecution was “devoid of any factual and legal basis”.
The procedure had been triggered after the revelations of the “Pandora Papers”, a survey of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). According to these documents, the mining company MINERA DOMINGA had been sold in 2010 by a company owned by the Chief of State Chiefs to a businessman, a friend of the President, for $ 152 million, a transaction made to the Virgin Islands British.
He can not apply to his own succession
The payment of the transaction was to be carried out in three installments and contained a controversial clause which subordinated the last payment on the condition that no environmental protection zone is established on the operating zone of the mining company. According to the investigation, the Government of Sebastian Piñera has finally protected the area where mining was planned, so the third payment has been made. The Socialist President Michelle Bachelet (2006-2010), to which Mr. Piñera had succeeded, however, had recommended that the area rich in biodiversity which houses a colony of Humboldt penguins, a threatened species.
The right president, which is also one of the richest men in Chile had denounced a “false or misleading facts” and estimated that the case had already been judged in 2017 and is the subject of a non-place. At the opening of a new criminal investigation in early October, the parquet had argued, however, that the facts related to the sale and purchase of the mining company “were not expressly included” in the decision of non-place .
The end of the dismissal procedure against Mr. Piñera comes a few days from the November 21 elections in which a new president is appointed, and the Parliament renewed. Mr. Piñera can not be a candidate for his own succession, but his mandate is far from over, with a probable second round on December 19th and a transmission of power on March 11, 2022.