Senate Rejects Constitutional Accusation Against Former Minister Nicolás Grau

After a day of debate and voting, the Senate has rejected the constitutional accusation against former Finance Minister Nicolás Grau, which was brought forward by representatives from the Republican and National Libertarian parties.

Specifically, all four chapters of the accusation were dismissed: Chapter 1: 25 votes against, 16 in favor, 4 abstentions; Chapter 2: 32 votes against, 9 in favor, 2 abstentions; Chapter 3: 26 votes against, 16 in favor, 3 abstentions; and Chapter 4: 33 votes against, 10 in favor, 2 abstentions.

It is important to note that, according to the National Libertarian and Republican Party members, the former Secretary of State was believed to bear «political responsibility» for alleged irregularities in the fiscal projections made by the government led by President Gabriel Boric.

However, this stance failed to garner consensus within the right-wing factions, which voted in a divided manner on each chapter, falling significantly short of the 26 votes needed for approval.

In fact, as reported by The Clinic, there were chapters, such as the second, that received no support even from Republican senators (Cristián Vial and Rodolfo Carter), despite the accusation being presented and promoted by their own party.

Moreover, several right-wing senators did not vote, including Luciano Cruz-Coke (Evópoli), who abstained, Manuel José Ossandón (RN), who was traveling, and Miguel Ángel Calisto, who could not make it from Aysén.

Following the vote, former Minister Grau expressed gratitude to «senators who hold differing political views than mine, and who today, despite those differences, assessed the accusation on its own merits, rejecting it or abstaining in some cases. This is very valuable.»

«It has been demonstrated that this was a baseless accusation. My lawyer made it clear: I never wanted my defense to rely on the claim that I was not responsible for something being attributed to us, as it was another part of the State’s responsibility. Rather, I maintained that the very facts being attributed were not true,» Grau emphasized.

«I believe that the cross-party nature of the rejection of the accusation and the fact that when this was investigated, discussed calmly, and when experts attended the reviewing committee, there was no one in that committee who claimed there were clear grounds for a constitutional accusation. This is a very significant point,» the former minister concluded.