In Chile, those who have been presidents continue to exert great influence. But among the four living former presidents who governed the country after the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, from 1990 onwards, only the socialist Michelle Bachelet (2006-2010 and 2014-2018) is about to approve the proposal for a new Constitution that will be plebiscited this Sunday. When the definitive text was known, in the first days of July, the Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle (1994-2000) announced that he would vote against it. The socialist Ricardo Lagos, on the other hand, who led La Moneda between 2000 and 2006, decided not to announce his preference, but he turned the political table around when he invited all political sectors to continue with the constitutional process after the plebiscite, given that the proposal of the convention does not generate any consensus, as he explained. Former right-wing president Sebastián Piñera, who governed twice, between 2010 and 2014 and between 2018 and 2022, has chosen to follow the guidelines of the rejection campaign and leave the leading role to civil society, far from politicians. Although it is clear that he is for the rejection, he has not announced it and is not expected to do so before September 4.
On Wednesday, August 31, Bachelet left her post as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, based in Geneva, and that same night he debuted in the television campaign in favor of the approval. He did it right in the last chapter, because this Thursday the propaganda ended. There is no clarity about Bachelet’s ability to mobilize the Chilean electorate, but there has been a commitment to encourage women, where the socialist has large pockets of followers, especially in popular sectors. In the audiovisual piece, she was seen to be very faithful to her style that led her to the presidency on the first occasion — close, simple and smiling, as she was not seen so much in her second term — grinding avocado and drinking tea with a group of women from Quinta Normal, a municipality in Santiago de Chile, whom he surprised with his arrival. “When women do things, history advances,” the socialist doctor, who will vote in Geneva, assured on the television space.
The one who turned the Chilean political board on July 5 was the 84-year-old socialist Ricardo Lagos. Through from a letter on his blog He pointed out that neither the convention’s proposal nor the current Constitution generate consensus, so the constitutional process must continue after the referendum. “Constitutions need general acceptance and we turn to their rules to save our differences. A Constitution cannot be partisan. Only in this way, discussing within the Constitution and not about it, can countries change within the framework of reasonable stability,” wrote Lagos, who has played a major role in recent months, despite the fact that his political legacy has received great criticism. a decade ago by the generation of the left that governs today. “Chile needs and deserves a Constitution that arouses consensus and that, sooner rather than later, allows us to stop debating about it in order to live within it,” added the socialist, who supported Boric in the 2021 presidential runoff.
Former President Frei, for his part, took a risky option. Despite the official decision of his party, the Christian Democracy, which decided to approve the proposal, Frei Ruiz-Tagle announced his vote for rejection. “A history of more than 50 years in politics and a republican tradition make it inescapable the responsibility of expressing to my compatriots the importance of protecting our democracy from initiatives that weaken it, submitting our permanent institutions to the discretion of temporary political majorities,” wrote the son of another former Christian Democrat president, Eduardo Frei Montalva (1964-1970). In any case, he made a call to “identify those aspects of the convention proposal that should be part of a broad agreement on a constitutional reform, which incorporates them in the shortest possible time.”
What happens with the former presidents of the center-left faithfully shows what has happened with the political class that governed Chile after the dictatorship: many of its main faces will not approve the new Constitution, despite the guidelines of their parties. The progressive intellectual Ernesto Ottone explained it a few days ago in an interview with EL PAÍS: “Perhaps the greatest novelty is that it revives the reforming spirit of a sector of the center-left that participated in the democratic transition and was orphaned when its referent supporters declined. enormously in the face of criticism —often ruthless— from the maximalist left made up of younger generations, hardly defending their work and subordinating themselves to the radical left.” For the sociologist, “a good part of this rebirth has been carried out outside party structures and in opposition to the draft Constitution prepared by the constitutional convention.”
The one who has not publicly reported his vote, despite the summons from ruling party leaders, has been Piñera, in whose government the social outbreak took place and the agreement that allowed the constituent process was signed. It is part of the opposition’s strategy of giving space to organized civil society and not linking the option of rejection with political figures. In the case of Piñera, the decision seems obvious, because he left La Moneda last March with very low levels of popularity.
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