It was extremely simplistic to believe or think – but it was believed and insisted on since October 2019 – that Chile was eager to radically change its course. Sunday’s result indicates that this was not the case. Citizens, instead of changing the institutional physiognomy of the country, establishing plurinationality and a political system with the preeminence of the majority and almost without counterweights, preferred to give the floor to all the sectors that opposed this constitutional proposal, from the right to the center-left, suggesting a more moderate change for which, they said, it was better to stay for a while with the 1980 Constitution, whose bases were forged in the dictatorship, lower the quorums and negotiate a change in the current Congress.
What lessons does this result leave? What lessons remain when trying to understand the political phenomenon? Of course, the result shows that the social changes that modernization has produced in the last three decades -expansion of consumption, individuation, the appearance of proletarian middle groups until the day before yesterday- are deeper than they appeared. The image of Chilean society promoted by the Broad Front -a coalition that has a family resemblance to Podemos-, as if it were made up of a stingy and neoliberal elite dominating an abused people in need of redemption, is not consistent with the reality.
It is probable that a good part of the phenomena that appeared with violence three years ago, in October 19, have more complex causes than the simple claim for social or class vindication. Some aspects of the constitutional proposal that has just been rejected, such as its plurinational nature (the letter listed more than a dozen nations), the existence of several justice systems or the weakening of individual property, have influenced the rejection that just succeeded. This would prove that Chile will not be the tomb of neoliberalism (as some signs proclaimed imitating those of Madrid against fascism in Spain in 1936) but rather, on the contrary, it insinuates that this type of modernization penetrated deeper into the people than was believed. believed.
The result will teach the center-left that the work it carried out for three decades and that changed the material conditions of existence of Chileans gave rise to a new social subject, animated by a different, more plural and varied culture, a subject that has replaced in much of it is the struggle for vindication and class, due to the demand of interests that change and fluctuate according to the vicissitudes of life that one is going through. The cleavage of Chilean politics is no longer linked to the social structure, but fluctuates and changes according to circumstances.
The phenomenon was already hinted at by the same revolt of October 2019, which occurred just 18 months after the citizens had given the victory to the right. Then, former president Sebastián Piñera misunderstood his victory, believing that it was an ideological adherence to the right. The left of the Broad Front made the same mistake: they believed that their victory and the October revolt had been a rejection of the modernizing model of the last three decades in Chile.
What will come next? The Government of Gabriel Boric transformed this plebiscite – and perhaps it was inevitable that it would do so – into a true referendum, a scrutiny of government performance. The result will then force him to make changes to his government alliance and his speech.
It will? Gabriel Boric has shown signs of great discursive plasticity, an elasticity in her themes and in her almost chameleon-like opinions of her, and it is likely that he will turn to her now to deal with what he knows of defeat. But it is not easy. Because the Broad Front and itself have built their presence in public culture on the basis of a diagnosis of the last decades (by any indicator, the best in Chilean history) that presented them as the scaffolding of a profoundly unequal society. , erected on the abuse of majorities.
To this has been added an agenda of issues that have a generational accent, such as feminism or environmental demands, which galvanizes the sectors that support it; but that, if it does not leave the majorities cold, it does not seem to be enough to win their support. Boric will have to learn very soon that in contemporary Chile adhesions are volatile and fragile, and that the cleavage of politics is no longer rooted in anything fixed. The cleavage is no longer very solid and what seems like it after a while vanishes into thin air.
What is certain -the force of the facts- is that Gabriel Boric will have to modify his policy of alliances and look to the center-left, the same on whose attempted demolition he built his leadership, the cadres and especially the ideas that allow him to carry forward the constitutional modification that Chile expects and the public policies that the pathologies of modernization (in any case the most successful in the Latin American region) demand.
The debate that has led to this result has already shown a certain consensus of the political forces around social rights, recognition of indigenous peoples and parity. Bringing to light this underlying consensus in Chilean society is the challenge that will test the skills of Gabriel Boric, who will have the opportunity to prove that in politics (the phrase is from Aguilar Camín) one does not go as far as talent predicts. , but as limitations allow.
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