President Gabriel Boric asked to respect the result of the plebiscite on the proposal for a new Constitution “whatever it may be” and showed his support for the Electoral Service (Servel).
“Whatever the result, we are going to respect and enforce the result that Chileans decide on September 4,” the president said at a press conference in the south of the country in the middle of a regional tour.
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The head of state reiterated his point, in an interview with Radio Macarena de Chillán, stating that “I am going to play for a Chile that unites for a new Constitution, whether it wins the Approval or the Rejection.”
“I want to say that both options are legitimate, if the Rejection wins, we are going to have to face a new constituent process, a new Convention, that is going to take, by the way, more time,” he said. And he added: “But, the people of Chile have already defined themselves by having a new Constitution, which is written in a democratic, equal way, with more participation than was traditionally done, and by the way, the Constitution of 80.”
Gabriel Boric said that “if the Approval wins, we will have to make improvements, make reforms, we will have to convene, where I will raise from a position of humility.”
“There can be no victors and vanquished here. We have to meet again around our fundamental rules, and around something that seems to be consensus today: that Chile has to move towards a social and democratic State of law, where certain aspects of life, such as health, education, pensions, housing, are not the business they are today, but that they are rights that do not depend on the amount of money that one has in one’s pocket,” complemented the President of the Republic, concluding that “that’s what I’m going to play for, that’s what our Government is fully deployed for, and that’s what we’re going to lead after September 5.”
Boric’s statements come hours after the far-right deputy Gonzalo de la Carrera unleashed the controversy by denouncing a possible fraud in the vote in two weeks, one of the most polarized in recent history.
The parliamentarian complained this week to the Electoral Service (Servel) for the appearance of deceased people in the register and on Thursday night he published a controversial image on Twitter of a cemetery with relatives visiting their dead.
The photograph was accompanied by the message “El ApruEVO y el Servel haciendo puerta a puerta”, in reference to the support of former Bolivian President Evo Morales for the new Constitution.
“There is a sector of the right in Chile that is repeating the same thing that a sector of the right has done in Latin America, Bolsonaro is currently doing it (…) and Trump did it at the time, which ended with the assault on the Capitol,” Boric said.
“The democrats are going to defend democracy and we are going to support the Servel,” he added.
More than 15 million Chileans are called to the polls on September 4 to decide if they want to approve the new Constitution or maintain the current one, inherited from the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990) and partially reformed in democracy.
The right and part of the center-left will vote against it when finding the new text, while the left is campaigning in favor of “I approve”, although it has pledged to reach a great pact to reform the most conflictive aspects.
The new law declares Chile a social state governed by the rule of law and enshrines rights such as public and universal health, free education, better pensions, and access to housing and water.
The right to voluntary interruption of pregnancy, the plurinational nature of the State and the elimination of the Senate are some of the issues included in the text that generate the most controversy.
For months, polls gave the winner the option of approving the new text, but the main polls indicate a greater citizen preference towards maintaining the current law.
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