El Ciudadano
Original article: Revelan que 67 asesores de parlamentarios fueron finiquitados e indemnizados, salieron a hacer campaña y luego los recontrataron
Investigation Reveals 67 Parliamentary Advisors Indemnified, Campaigning, and Rehired for Upcoming Elections
An exclusive investigation by CIPER Chile has uncovered that 67 advisors from both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate were indemnified using public funds to campaign in the upcoming 2024 and 2025 elections, later being rehired after the elections concluded. The total indemnity paid to these advisors, whose severance payments ranged from $500,000 to nearly $10 million each, amounted to $189 million.
According to the Parliament Allocations Resolution Council’s regulations, an advisor cannot be a candidate and serve in Congress simultaneously. This meant that these advisors had to resign or suspend their contracts to engage in the municipal and regional campaigns of 2024, as well as the parliamentary and presidential elections of 2025. CIPER documented that 58 out of the 67 advisors who were terminated ran as candidates, primarily for council positions, and except for three cases, they all participated in campaigns aligned with the same political sector as the legislators they worked for.
Data analysis by CIPER Chile comparing the severance payments made by the Chamber and Senate from January 2024 to March 2026 with the campaign financial reports from Servel revealed that four advisors raised their salaries months before their termination, which increased the amount of their severance pay as stipulated in Article 163 of the Labor Code. The most notable case involved Deputy Nelson Venegas (PS), who raised an advisor’s salary from $1.3 million to $2.8 million in May 2024, then let him go in July so he could run as a candidate. Venegas justified the raise to CIPER by stating that the advisor «had improved his academic qualifications.»
The media also found that four advisors worked simultaneously in Congress and electoral campaigns, violating regulations that prohibit using parliamentary allocation resources for electoral activities. These included Luis Reyes, an advisor to current Senator Enrique Lee, who issued invoices for $2.8 million for a regional council campaign while receiving a salary from the Chamber; Josue Varas, a former advisor to former Deputy Sofía Cid, who charged $560,000 for territorial coordination work while still under contract; and Norma Elguin, an advisor to Deputy Joanna Pérez, who assisted in four campaigns while employed. All were rehired after the elections, with the latter two being terminated in 2025.
The investigation by CIPER further revealed that between 2022 and March 2026, the Chamber of Deputies paid $5.7 billion in severances for 1,336 advisors, rehiring 489 of them at a cost of $2.4 billion. The expenditure on these severances increased 187 times over 14 years: from $31 million in the period from 2012 to 2014 to $5.7 billion from 2022 to 2026, according to data obtained through the Transparency Law. In the Senate, $2.188 billion was disbursed to indemnify 218 advisors, of whom 23 were rehired. When consulted by CIPER, Deputy Daniela Serrano (PC) and Deputy Raúl Soto (PPD) agreed that these severance payments are not within their purview, but that of the General Secretariat of the Chamber.
Bastian Espinosa, president of the Association of Parliamentary Workers of Chile (Afutraparch), told CIPER that the real critique is aimed at cases of councilors and cores who are hired as advisors, resulting in «double salaries.»
The media’s investigation also highlighted that four Senate advisors, when rehired following their termination in March 2026, reached the legal maximum of 11 years of indemnification. If they are dismissed again, they could exceed that limit. When asked by CIPER, the involved parliamentarians offered various justifications, while Deputy Joanna Pérez simply stated that her whole team «has always worked under the established internal regulations,» and Senator Enrique Lee questioned the investigation, claiming it is «biased and heavily targeted.»
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