translated from Spanish: Paula Narváez for citizen primaries: “It is necessary for people to decide”

With these words Paula Narvaez, presidential candidate of the Socialist Party, Party for Democracy, Liberal Party and New Deal reiterated the call to the rest of the political forces of the Constituent Unity to arrive at the presidential election in November with a single candidacy, chosen through “an open, democratic and transparent process.” The presidential standard-bearer stressed that while the Christian Democracy and the Radical Party express their will to this fraternal invitation “we are in the middle of the campaign, committing ourselves to the agenda of the native peoples, to the agenda of small and medium-sized enterprises. We are on the ground, we are working, we are building Chile from the bottom up. This is a living project and all we are saying is that it is the citizens who decide.” In the same vein, Deputy Natalia Castillo (NT) stressed that “this candidacy is not afraid to compete and we, from the blocs of the PPD, PS, New Deal and the PL have reaffirmed through a letter of commitment the possibility of having open and citizen primaries. We believe that there is no better poll than when people are asked directly which is the candidacy that best represents this political sector” and added that “we make ourselves available to that process, we are very eager to measure ourselves in these citizen primaries and we hope to have answers from the DC soon.” For his part, the generalissimo of Narvaez’s campaign, New Deal deputy Pablo Vidal, indicated that “the wills are expressed. What is missing now is for the agreement to happen. The call and the invitation that we make is very clear and simple to the people of the DC, it is a loving and fraternal call for us to establish that agreement soon, the people have the right to know if those primaries are going to happen.” From the Laguna de Batuco Wetland, where she participated in a ceremony performed by representatives of native peoples within the framework of the beginning of the We Tripantu, Paula Narváez highlighted the meaning of this celebration, which “has to do with ancestral knowledge, with a very important message of reconnection with our nature and also of commitment to peace and , for there to be peace, there has to be social justice. We have a very long-standing outstanding debt to the native peoples, to the Mapuche people in particular, and in general to the indigenous peoples in our country.” For this reason, he expressed his commitment “to the agenda of the indigenous and native peoples on this date. We are on the way to building and recognizing ourselves as a plurinational and multicultural State, but that means concrete measures, adapting our educational curricula, recognizing our ancestral knowledge and incorporating it into our lives, and also recognizing the reparation that is needed for the dispossession that native peoples have suffered in our history.”

Original source in Spanish