With the massive participation in the historic plebiscite of 25 October, Chileans have once again shown their broad peaceful commitment to the institutional and representative forms of democracy as the only way to solve common problems. This has even more value in light of the last year lived, where radicalized groups used violent and destructive action, seeking to re-invindicate the destruction of urban heritage and our neighborhoods as a supposed legitimate engine of change. To this uncontrolled and rabid violence, all Chileans—both those who voted Apruebo and Rejection—have said enough! And we have entered it together in democracy with a simple gesture of voting at the ballot box. Democracy and the Bic pencil finally triumph over fire and destruction. Congratulations! Let us hope that this message will last and echo in the younger ones.
Apruebo’s triumph was blunt: nearly 8 out of 10 voters yearn for a new constitution. While there are half of Chileans who did not participate and did not vote, the fact that there has been such high participation, even under a context of global pandemic and health risks, gives an account of the legitimacy of the process. The bluntness of the result is also evidence of the success of those promoting the Apruebo option, as this option was obviously profiled as a channel of positivity and expression of change that would supposedly respond to all the unrest of citizens expressed multifaceted since October 2019. There is no doubt that the constitution acquired a symbolic character and a form of “sacrificial lamb” in which citizens saw a ritualistic expression to wash away our sins and our mistakes as a society so that we could purify ourselves from a problematic past. These rituals and symbols, as so often happens in Latin America, ended up imposing themselves on the debate about the effective contents of the constitution and its real effects on the social and economic life of the country.
In any case, the peaceful nature, the magnitude of the public’s support for the process and the strong outcome of the Apruebo confer undoubted legitimacy on the next steps of the constituent process. Moreover, the huge result of The Apruebo, which accounted for 78.27% of preferences, should be a message to all that this number does not mean a classic or ideological struggle from left to right. In fact, within the centroderecha sectors, figures such as Joaquín Lavín and Ignacio Briones are within the Apruebo group. The Apruebo is then an amalgam of various voices from different socioeconomic and political spectrums that includes at least one-third of the self-defined Creole right. As Loreto Cox rightly pointed out, “The Apruebo belongs neither to a certain generation, nor to a political sector, nor to a certain kind. It’s just that 78% is simply a very large number.” These results should then remind us that no political or ideological sector can claim to arrogate for itself the outcome of the plebiscite, which evidently did not have any leader or ideologo playing a relevant articulating role, either throughout the process or during the celebrations. The Apruebo then leaves the court completely open so that the contents of the new Constitution are contested with serious and constructive ideas.
Thus, the outcome and peaceful process of the plebiscite belong not to the violentists who destroy our cities, nor to the politicians who are self-absorbed trying to take their eyes off, nor to a specific left-wing ideological sector, but rather, this belongs to all the respectful citizens who want to use the peaceful mechanisms of representative democracy to sit at a table and finally agree to be able to get out of our hole. Paradigmatic of the above is the fact that on October 25, millions of Chileans participated in an orderly and peaceful manner in a plebiscite to profoundly change our rules of the game, while two weeks later our politicians in Congress turn their eyes again with unfounded constitutional accusations and with deeply populist and unnecessary measures, such as a second withdrawal of 10% of pension funds. While political elites are in a brazen zero-sum struggle between factions seeking to do only harm to each other, citizens, for their part, are setting the true example of democracy and civility. Politicians are really in a try-and-godestructive and populist, while citizenship is here on Planet Earth, demanding agreements and rationality.
Finally, we can point out that the thing that really binds and brings together that large number of Apruebo, is that a solid majority of citizens expressed real yearnings for improvements in the deplorable state of national things and in our cracked political and economic institutions. 78.27% represent high expectations that— unlike our current and foolish congressmen — we can resolve our differences through dialogue and through a new Constitution that lashs out at the shortcomings and problems we have as a society and that have been exacerbated by zero economic growth and a hateful struggle between political elites that is increasingly resembling a “flait” version of Twitter. If there is one thing eloquent that tells us the outcome of the plebiscite, it is that there is a large honest and democratic sector of the population that seeks to be reformist and improve our alicaly reality, but at the same time being responsible and looking for peaceful forms of agreement and broad pacts. The fact that citizens are still civilized, living up to democracy and not behaving as our politicians do today, is a good sign that he optimistically suggests to us—and as Ortega and Gasset reminded us—that “there is no fate so unfavourable that we cannot fertilize it by accepting it with joviality and decision. From him, from his rough rubbing, from his inescapable anguish, the peoples draw the capacity for great historical truths.”
The content poured into this opinion column is the sole responsibility of its author, and does not necessarily reflect the editorial line or position of El Mostrador.
