With three videos, the reappearanced Pablo Longueira premiered his YouTube channel to deepen his campaign “Apruebo, but not Zero” that departed the weekend when in an interview with El Mercurio, announced his decision to campaign for the Apruebo option in the plebiscite of October 25, run as a candidate for the Constitutional Convention and apply for the presidency of the UDI.
Longueira’s youtuber tactic with the videos titled “New Constitution Agreement” “Plebiscito 25 de Octubre” and “Constitutional or Mixed Convention”, aims to “transform the plebiscite of October 25 into a great reunion where we will close our transition to democracy, where we will make way for a New Constitution, rescuing the best of a tremendous Constitution made in the FAFA Government. (1980-2022)”.
Under the slogan “I approve, but not of zero”, the axis of the message of the accused in the SQM case is to dump all the energies in the Constituent that is chosen next April and not in the plebiscite, for which he even appealed to the former Concertación so that he could replicate his strategy and be able to reissue the policy of the agreements the ’90 in the drafting of the New Constitution.
“We cannot continue to move towards the plebiscite in the way we are doing it. The country is experiencing a moment of great uncertainty, we are playing in this plebiscite and next year’s convention the country is 30, 40 or 50 years ahead,” Longueira says in the first of the videos to announce its stance.
“Let us leave all the energy of this plebiscite for the coming year where we have to choose those who will represent us for this new Constitution without fear (…) It’s very easy to rant about rejection, but it’s time to sweat,” he said.
According to Longueira, he has already shared his gaze on the choice of conventionals with industry leaders and José Antonio Kast, to whom he raised that “we have to have a common strategy in the centre right. This is a choice where parties don’t have to compete, we end the differences, we have to bring the best of our world as conventional.”
The rules of the game indicate that the 155 members of the Constituent Convention will be elected with the electoral system of the Chamber of Deputies, so the former speaker proposes to put together a list of excellence and carry 28 strong candidates in the 28 districts “as if they were candidates for the Senate”, among which he nominates. “And beneath us we drag with our vote the best constitutionalists, women, representatives of native peoples, environmental experts”, etc.
“With this strategy we can get at least 70 of those 155 and those who want a Bolivarian Constitution will tell them that they do not have the votes. And if the Concertación decides to do the same and 28 concertation leaders go and below are also their technical teams, we will have more than 66 percent and we will make a great Constitution (…) May the Concertation which is unfortunately being absorbed by this undemocratic left do so,” he postulated.
Message on the right
Heading towards his sector, the former minister states that “grassroots that not a few are outraged at me,” with his weekend statements, but he turns right that “we are the only political sector that is divided… and we cannot continue like this, because a plebiscite has to be confronted with unity.”
“I’ve never been by rejection, I don’t think it’s the way to defend ideas (…) Rejection does not defend any ideas,” he adds, adding to emphasize later that “a plebiscite that has two options has to have two large blocks defending both options and that no longer happened.”
According to Longueira, there is a “silent majority” in the country and “I have no doubt that 80% of Chileans want an Apruebo but not from scratch, an Apruebo where we want the best of this Constitution to make another (…) but not a blank sheet. The Bolivarians are clear what they want.”
He then argues that he “would never have made this decision if we had all been for one option,” especially in a scenario where the “Government is in the box and takes no stance.”
In this context, Longueira recalls that “in the 1988 plebiscite President Pinochet drew 43%, and many presidents would like that result. That 43% result was essential for us to have a successful transition so that the FFAA that went to resto return to the country in 1973 in the face of the call of citizenship returning to their work in a peaceful and orderly transition and so it happened. And with that result, the modernizing work of the FFAA Government was brought out. If in that plebiscite, that result would have been 75% by the No, 25% for the Yes, even 80-20, there would have been no stone on stone.”
Under his perspective, he predicts that “we go to a plebiscite where given the division that exists in our sector and the indifference of our Government to support one option or another, it is 80% for the Apruebo and 20% for the rejection, being generous (…) and if the rejection draws 20%, there will be no article left of the current Constitution.”
According to Longueira, “chances are that those who want a Bolivarian Constitution are even discussing us whether we are going to keep the huemul on the shield or change it to the ‘matapacos puppy’, that’s the level we’re at.”
“I call you to reflect, what we have to act on is to unite so that this plebiscite is irrelevant, it is a democratic feast, we are all by The Apruebo, and then we go to the convention (…) that’s where our ideas are defended. Let us not vote for the mix that the current MPs are still there. This is the way to defend freedom, this is the way to defend this Constitution that will be remembered as the Constitution of the FF.AA. (…) an extraordinary Constitution that has allowed the leap of the country”, he noted.
