Gustavo Petro has reacted with little diplomacy to the defeat of the new Constitution in Chile championed by his colleague Gabriel Boric, along with whom he intends to lead a progressive axis in Latin America. “Pinochet revived”, wrote the president of Colombia on Twitter about a CNN news that advanced the victory of the no. Minutes later, he delved into the idea of union between a new generation of rulers far from the old dogmas of the radical left to impose a reformist agenda: “Only if the democratic and social forces unite, will it be possible to leave behind a past that stains to all of Latin America and open the democratic alamedas”.
In just two tweets he has named and made reference to two ghosts from Chile’s past, the dictator Pinochet who ruled from the 1970s to the early 1990s, and Salvador Allende, the socialist president who suffered Pinochet’s coup d’état and committed suicide in the presidential residence with a shotgun blast as the military were about to enter the door. Petro trusted in a constitutional reform that, in his opinion, would lead the Andean country towards a more just society.
He himself has considered on some occasions modifying some articles of the Colombian constitution, but the rejection he has found in front of him has stopped him in his tracks. It is considered a progressive text, at least more so than Colombian society itself. Trying to modify it would be wildly unpopular. During the electoral campaign he had to discard that idea because with her on the program it would have been practically impossible for him to be president. He believes that the one that was signed in 1991 with a great national agreement, a path that was opened with the delivery of weapons by the M-19 guerrillas (Petro was part of it), has some conservative biases that limit the social policies that he wants to carry out a leftist government like his.
That same rejection that he would surely find in Colombia is the one that has been imposed this Sunday in Chile. With 88% of the tables counted, the vote against modifying the text takes 62% of the votes and, for only 38% of those who were willing to change it. He is not resounding because the participation has been very high: some 12.8 million people – there were 15.1 million called – went out to vote this Sunday.
With a tone very different from that of Petro, the opposition Juan Guaidó called for the result to be respected. The Chilean people expressed themselves in a great democratic day. Respect for popular sovereignty expressed through voting, mobilized citizenship and the independence of powers are key to protecting democracy. In Latin America, democracy is revived with respect for rights,” he wrote.
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