Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs participates in extraordinary session of the Permanent Council of the OAS

The Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs, Gloria de la Fuente, participated in the extraordinary session of the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS), convened to review the follow-up of the Inter-American Democratic Charter.

In the “Reflections on the future implementation of the Work Plan of the Voluntary Follow-up Group to the Inter-American Democratic Charter” section, the Undersecretary noted the importance that our country gives to this instrument, indicating that “in Chile we believe that the Inter-American Democratic Charter continues to be very relevant, since it defines the fundamental agreements of our hemisphere with respect to democracy, considered the best path towards the development of our peoples. It is therefore vital to work on it with the vision of the current times”.

The Inter-American Democratic Charter is an instrument of the OAS, whose main purpose is to preserve democratic institutions, in addition to defining and promoting a democratic culture in the American continent, among other elements.

Along these lines, the Undersecretary emphasized the importance of thinking of how to understand each country's contributions to preserving the quality of democratic proceedings beyond electoral observation. “To the essential components of democracy we must add other very important ones that appear in the document, such as transparency, participation, and the regulation of the influence of money, a key issue in the most unequal region on the planet,” she said.

“The task ahead of us is to think, create, and move towards providing ourselves with collective instruments that, just as today, allow us to convene and activate institutional mechanisms to defend democracy in the new global context,” said the undersecretary at the end of her speech.