Key hours live the commune of San Ramón. This, because on Monday the Electoral Qualifying Tribunal (Tricel) confirmed the resolution of the Second Electoral Court of the Metropolitan Region, so it annulled the votes for mayors and councilors in 65 tables of the commune, in which irregularities are detected such as ballot boxes without security seals or votes attended with people linked to the controversial former PS mayor Miguel Ángel Aguilera , so these will be done again.
Attentive to the resolution and the future of the municipality is the candidate who competed against Aguilera for that municipality, Councilman DC Gustavo Toro. This is because, despite the fact that the elections will be repeated, no one can guarantee that the crimes committed – and which ended with the annulment of the votes – will happen again. For this reason, Toro, along with the other candidates for mayor of the commune, Genaro Balladares (independent), Miguel Pino (independent) and David Cabedo (RN), asked Chile Transparente for support to ensure the correct repetition of the elections.
“Faced with a new electoral process, we have a legitimate concern that this will be carried out in the most transparent way possible, guarding the right of the residents of San Ramon to pay freely and informedly. It is for this reason that we have come to formally request the Chilean Chapter of Transparency International, which you direct, the presence of local observers in the electoral precincts where the vote for mayor and councilors of the municipality of San Ramón takes place, “says part of the text.
In conversation with El Mostrador in La Clave, Toro delved into this request: “We are going to have national observers and we expect internationals with Chile Transparente through Alberto Precht. We have had a very good reception and they would be actively participating in the election process with their observers, who would also collaborate so that together with the Servel they develop in a good way”.
“What happens is that repeating the elections results in a great expense for the State of Chile. We must consider that now we are going to have to make a whole new choice, where there are going to be new members, where we are going to have to mobilize the Army, the Carabineros, where we are going to have to mobilize infrastructure. So who’s taking care of that? In the end who pays for all this? The State of Chile. So the damage it causes on the one hand has to do with the institutional, but on the other hand it has to do with the resources itself as generated and that we are also going to pay all Chileans, because of a subject who seeks personal gain and also uses pillages to win an election, “he adds.
On the future of the commune, Toro says that “there is a practical, legal problem and there is also a problem of a tense nature. On the one hand, on the 28th, the authorities ceased to function. Therefore, the mayor and the council can no longer continue.” Toro is currently a councilor for the commune, so from that date, he and Aguilera will not be able to exercise their position.
“Here there is a major problem that the Council cannot be constituted according to what already exists, and the Council passes through the great communal decisions. So, the most likely thing is that from June 28 San Ramon will not have authorities and that seems to me to be a serious fact,” he added.
Aguilera, in addition to facing this re-run of the vote, has to face formalization for corruption. Given this, even winning he might not take office. “This does not prohibit him from being a candidate, even from winning. He could win the election. Remember that even when you realize at the table that there are 65 tables, you still stay in the first place. He beats me by 1%, by 350 votes. Then we’re going to split an election where he starts by winning. And if he wins, chances are he’s going to get arrested and we’d have an elected mayor in prison.” He could only lose his office if he is “convicted.”
“The number one issue is that if he is remanded in custody, he effectively cannot serve as mayor. And what the law establishes is that if he is charged, which is the second stage, after the formalization, then he would be leaving his position as mayor. And if he is convicted, he would already be disqualified as such. But that can take quite a few months because it’s a legal procedure,” he said.
With police protection
Toro explained that since he began to supervise the work of the mayor Aguilera, began to receive threats, which escalated into violence, so he is under police escort.
“It’s a regrettable fact. Since I started my oversight work, working hard against what was happening in Sam Ramon, I started getting threats coming from what this means. At first pachotadas and insults. Then the attacks began on social media, not only on me, but also on my family, and then they started with mass attacks, to the point that a couple of months ago, in October, I received the first death threat in person between people who told me that they were going to shoot me,” he said.
“I started reporting to the Prosecutor’s Office and they started monitoring what was happening. At first they were making a round, they called me, they started to worry, but when they started to follow me vehicles to record me, it started to get a little bit uglier. And already in March, in the middle of the campaign, a fourth at nine o’clock at night, in the Population La Bandera encerrona, with a clean bullet. It was the first act already direct. The following two months it was repeated, but already at 10 in the morning, in a main avenue of San Ramon, again with a gun. That has meant that today I have to be in custody and escort. Today I am a councilman who from the moment he leaves the house until he returns has to walk with the Carabineros because I cannot walk in the street any other way,” he added.
