In secret, a new political reform is being discussed between parliamentarians and the government—with the backing of the president of the Association of Municipalities and the president of Chile's governors—aimed at relaxing a series of disqualifications in order to make it easier for mayors, councilors, governors, regional councilors, and parliamentarians to run and compete for cross-over positions. Among other changes, the proposal would seek to reduce from one year to six months the current waiting period they must observe before resigning if they wish to move on to other positions; likewise, it is also intended that mayors and deputies who have already reached the limit of two re-elections—meaning they can serve up to twelve years in their positions—may extend their tenure provided they run as candidates in other communes or districts. Current constitutional jurisprudence prevents a parliamentarian, mayor, councilor, regional councilor, or governor from circumventing the re-election limit by running in a different area. The president of the Senate, while noting that an initiative of this kind is attracting support—in the past, bills seeking to introduce flexibility regarding disqualifications have already been introduced—stated in an interview that "all these matters that concern the electoral system should be kept as far away from elections as possible (...) If this takes off, hopefully it will take off between now and March. If not, after that, it will no longer take off." It seems evident that a reform along these lines will spark enthusiasm among parliamentarians and other political authorities, who see in it the possibility of introducing more competition and a way of prolonging their political careers. Of course, it is legitimate to raise a debate about whether the current disqualifications for running for popularly elected offices can be reviewed, but it is clear that such modifications must be addressed with due depth and at a distance from any suspicion that they might be a pretext for benefiting the interests of the political class, especially the incumbents. The way these changes are being evaluated—for now without much public debate—and the haste with which they are intended to be approved do not seem to be the right way to do it, because they leave the impression that behind it all there is rather a purpose of looking at the electoral calculator, where the effect of the so-called "musical chairs" is already foreseen, whereby a group of leaders facilitates rules to rotate among different positions, a practice that will never look good in the eyes of the citizenry. But there is an even more fundamental issue, which is that there does not appear to have been any appreciation of how complex it is, once again, that electoral rules are being changed hastily and, above all, that they may end up benefiting incumbents, which certainly opens a flank of potential conflicts of interest. The country has recently been through experiences of this kind that have proven very draining, as occurred in the previous government when the Executive suddenly sought to discourage foreigners from voting in regional and municipal elections by seeking to exempt them from fines, or when an attempt was made to reduce the per-vote payment to parliamentarians right on the eve of an election, when campaign expenses had already been committed. The modifications proposed today all too easily overlook the limits that were meant to be imposed on the re-election of authorities, some of whom had held their positions for decades. This was the subject of reforms that took several years to implement, which was ultimately celebrated as an important step for the health of our democracy. Reducing to six months the waiting period for those authorities who aspire to another office should lead one to consider the risks of the office beginning to be used for purposes of self-promotion ahead of elections. The promoters of these reforms apparently have also not appreciated the effects that allowing new re-elections beyond the limits could end up threatening the renewal of figures in politics, because it is clear that this path reduces the space for new figures to emerge who challenge the incumbents—renewal being precisely one of the objectives sought when the aforementioned limits were established, in addition to preventing the consolidation of fiefdoms of power that can potentially become focal points of corrupt practices. In short, parties and leaders must also take into account that the country urgently needs to keep advancing a series of reforms to our political system, particularly with regard to discouraging atomization—where one of the pending issues remains establishing minimum thresholds to ensure representation in the Chamber of Deputies—ensuring that elected parliamentarians represent broad sectors of voters and are not elected with minuscule vote counts, and discouraging rebelliousness, among other measures. A step has already been taken in this direction with the reform recently passed by Congress to tighten the requirements for founding political parties or for parties to update their declaration of principles, rejecting their condemnation of totalitarian systems and the use of violence as a method of political action, but the task remains unfinished. The window that has opened thanks to 2027 not being an election year should be used to advance these pending reforms to the political system, rather than thinking about how to favor the electoral interests of the parties.