The socialist who governed Chile between 2000 and 2006, the first from the left to arrive at La Moneda after Salvador Allende, 17 years of dictatorship and a decade of Christian Democratic governments, Ricardo Lagos (85 years old, Santiago), analyzes the political moment key that the country is experiencing: the second attempt in four years to change its current Constitution. Written in 1980, during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, it has been reformed about 60 times since 1989. The most profound transformations occurred during his government in 2005, which is why the current text bears his signature. Lagos, however, has repeatedly come out in favor of replacing the Fundamental Charter.
Although with careful distance from daily politics, the former president has made his voice heard in defining moments. In July 2022, a Constitutional Convention dominated by the left delivered its proposal and Lagos shook up the political scene by setting up the discussion not only on the two options before that plebiscite, but on what would happen afterwards: how the text did not attract the necessary support –which was demonstrated at the polls– he called to continue with the constituent process after the referendum, without announcing whether he would be in favor of approval or rejection. Finally, citizens rejected the text by 62% to 38%.
Today Chile finds itself facing its second chance. It undertook a new process with different characteristics from the previous one and included among its stages the work of an Expert Commission, elected by Congress, which agreed on a text that generated political consensus. The project, however, was then worked on by a Constitutional Council of 50 members, dominated by the right: the traditional one got 11 seats, while the extreme right of the Republican Party, 22. A few days ago, last Monday, the plenary session of the The council approved it with 33 votes from the opposition and 17 from the ruling party of President Gabriel Boric, in a new example of the lack of consensus. The proposal will be put to a plebiscite on December 17. While the right and center groups have squared off to move it forward – they consider it better than the current one –, the left squares off by rejecting it, as conservative.
Cristian Soto Quiroz
In this interview with EL PAÍS, Lagos takes a public position regarding this referendum. His decision generates expectations in Chile.
Ask. How would you rate the political moment your country is experiencing?
Ask. It is a time of black and white, night and dawn. A time where politics fails to understand that the world has entered a very different phase from everything that shaped the meaning of development and life in two centuries. We are in the accelerated takeoff of the Digital Age, a time that leaves behind everything that came with Mr. Watt’s steam engine and the Industrial Revolution. Chile is leading the Latin American Artificial Intelligence Index, we are part of the profound transformation that lithium and green hydrogen bring, President Gabriel Boric is listened to attentively in Beijing and Washington… But something happens.
Q. What is happening?
R. Here we do not fully understand all that and we do not create great consensus in politics, so that Chile can once again have the leadership it had in recent decades.
Q. Last Monday, the Constitutional Council approved a text of the new Constitution with 33 votes from the right and 17 from the ruling party. Why has there not been a consensus on the draft new Constitution?
R. There things are more complex. I feel great disappointment at the way this process to create a new Constitution has concluded. What we have today is the text of a sector that believes it has the right to impose its veto on the rest of Chileans. Ideological inspiration, which may be legitimate in another area of political debate, has imposed itself in a way that gives us a partisan text, without any possibility of representing the Nation as a whole.
Q. A year ago, Chile held a referendum on a text that was rejected by 62% and that was criticized, precisely, for being partisan.
R. This is what we have suffered, both in the previous constitutional proposal and in this one: this inability to understand that the Constitution is the Law of laws. If logic should be like in families; In one way or another there is an order of things in the home, but that does not prevent the brothers from thinking differently, from being different. That dimension is what we don’t have now.
Q. Are you, then, in favor of rejecting the draft new Constitution?
R. I am in favor of rejection, because I do not see that this constitutional proposal helps us to unite as Chileans, as a society. It is a text that, despite everything the Commission of Experts did to achieve a consensus, was dismantled in the final stage by the Constitutional Council.
Q. Was a different project possible if it was the right that democratically reached 33 of the 50 seats in the Constitutional Council?
R. I am aware that the councilors arrived there after the May election, they arrived through a democratic process. But if the extreme right and the traditional right achieved an overwhelming majority, that did not free them from the responsibility of having worked for a Constitution not only for themselves, but for the entire country, for all Chileans.
Q. Aren’t you afraid that, after the rejection, if it is imposed, the future of Chile will be even more critical?
R. If rejection is imposed, we are not left in limbo. We have a Constitution from which to advance, through reforms, towards a country that can truly create a Social State of Law. I do not want anyone to impose their veto when talking about development with more equality, with true access to the changes that are coming. That is what today’s political leaders, from all sectors, need to understand. It is about having a Constitution to respond to what is coming or what already challenges us.
Q. At 85 years old and after a life dedicated to the public, what do you think those challenges are?
R. Digital is changing life in many ways. Someone like me, at 85 years old, knows that he will only see some of these transformations. But please, the Constitution must be designed for those children and young people who are just entering the 21st century, many of whom will live 100 years or more. Chile needs a Constitution that provides the appropriate framework for the new duties that the State will have in the future, in its task of creating a better life for Chileans. But political parties are still advancing with the inertia of the 20th century. By the way, democracy requires parties, but they must learn to understand and listen to citizens in a different way.
Q. Why does Chilean politics seem not to move forward, while society’s demands remain on hold?
R. Beyond the 2016 reform that ended the binomial system, we do not see that the practice of politics has changed. And now, especially after the protests and the consequences of the pandemic, the power of social networks is enormous to question or make demands on authority directly. But I still see a lot of situation there, of fighting in the today and now. We need parties and politicians that bring proposals for tomorrow, that give us an idea of a country for the 21st century, of a country that knows how to grow in the digital world in all its dimensions.
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