The leader of the Republican Party, José Antonio Kast, recognized this Sunday night that his party has “nothing to celebrate” after the rejection of 55% of Chileans to the constitutional proposal that pushed his party. “The Government of Gabriel Boric and the left have nothing to celebrate either,” he added, arguing that the damage done to the country in these four years of constitutional discussion has been “gigantic” and that it will take a long time to repair it. The former presidential candidate of the extreme right is one of the main faces of the electoral defeat. After knowing the results, Kast offered his speech accompanied only by the Republican leadership, without any authority from the traditional right-wing parties, who also campaigned for the option. in favor. “We failed in the effort to convince Chileans that this text was a better Constitution than the current one,” he said.
The Republican command, which remained completely secretive during the first hour of scrutiny, went into festive mode, dancing and waving Chilean flags to welcome Kast. “We recognize this defeat very clearly and also with great humility. For multiple reasons and explanations that we will have to analyze in the coming weeks,” said the leader of the hard right who for months has been confident that the results that projected the rejection of the proposal with conservative overtones and without political consensus would be reversed. The general secretary of the formation, Ruth Hurtado, said: “The result was not what we expected, but we are showing our face.”
This result changes the hegemony that the Republican Party achieved in the elections of constitutional councilors last May when it became the first political force, with 35% of the votes, which translated into 23 of the 50 seats (then they were left with 22). Now the Chile Vamos coalition, which brings together the parties of the traditional right (Independent Democratic Union, National Renovation and Evópoli), will once again claim its space as the main reference in the sector since it was the Republicans who led the failed proposal to change the Magna Carta. Attention is likely to focus on Evelyn Matthei, mayor of the UDI, the main presidential card of the party that, predictably, will compete for the conservative electorate with Kast in the campaign to reach La Moneda in 2026.
In a brief message on X, Matthei stated: “Four years of uncertainty has come to an end. Meanwhile, the country has worsened in crime, economy, health and, especially, coexistence.” In September, the mayor warned that the constitutional proposal was “headed to failure” and she showed her dissatisfaction with regulations that could affect abortion on three grounds and the exemption from taxes on the first home. Afterwards, however, she announced the vote for her and was an active leader in the campaign. Javier Macaya, president of the UDI, was the first leader of the command of the in favor in acknowledging defeat this Sunday. He assured that “there was obviously a lack of time” to deliver the message to the citizens, but that society was tired of the issue. He also called on all opposition forces to the Boric Government to act together.
It is expected that Kast will not only face friendly fire from Chile Vamos, but also from a right-wing sector of Republicans who distanced themselves from the party in the constitutional process. The most graphic example of friction occurred a couple of weeks ago, when Senator Rojo Edwards resigned from the Republican Party because he considered that the leadership stopped focusing on social emergencies and announced his vote against the constitutional proposal. The celebratory hugs at the headquarters where Edwards continued the scrutiny in the face of Republican isolation has been one of the images of the day. “There is 20% of the opposition that has supported freedom,” Edwards said. “We have to do something to defend it and we feel that our ideas have been endorsed by the citizens (…) In two more years there will be a Government that defends freedom,” he added, hinting at his political ambitions.
The departure of Edwards, who announced his intention to found a new libertarian formation, hit the discreet representation that the Republicans have in Congress and left them with only one senator, out of a total of 50, and with 12 out of 155 deputies. In this new scenario of defeat, it is likely that Kast will be charged for having joined the constitutional process, when they were never about to replace the Constitution born in the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1970-1990) and reformed some 70 times since 1989.
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