Gabriel Boric: “Beyond the result, the plebiscite strengthens our democracy”

The president of Chile, Gabriel Boricassured this Sunday that the plebiscite on the new Constitution proposal “strengthens” the democracy and said that, “regardless of which option wins,” Your Government will focus on the “people’s priorities”.

“Beyond any outcome, it strengthens our democracy. Chile has shown a strength that we do not have to take for granted, it has shown that we channel the problems we have in society institutionally and resolve them peacefully and trusting in the people.”indicated the president after voting in his native Punta Arenas, in the extreme south.

“It’s not like that in all places,” added the president, who will follow the results of the plebiscite from Santiago.

More than 15.4 million Chileans decide whether to approve or reject a new proposed Constitution to replace the current one, in force since 1981, in the midst of the dictatorship of Augusto Pincochet (1973-1990), but reformed dozens of times into democracy, especially in 2005, during the Presidency of Ricardo Lagos (2000-2006).

Of 17 chapters and 216 articles, the text did not achieve political consensus in the Constitutional Council, the body of 50 councilors elected at the polls that drafted the proposal for six months and where the extreme right and the traditional right asserted their majority, with 22 and 11 seats, respectively.

This is the second constitutional process that Chiliafter which concluded in September 2022 with a resounding rejection by the electorate of a project written by a convention with a leftist majority that proposed a radical transformation of Chilean institutions.

Boric, who has not been involved in this election unlike in last year’s plebiscite, indicated that “regardless of the result, the Government will continue working on the people’s priorities,” such as security, health, housing or education.

“This 2024 is going to be a year of good news in which Chile is going to grow again and we are going to take off as a country,” he added.

The right defends that the new constitutional proposal is better than the current Magna Carta because “pick up” current citizen concerns, such as security or migration, and assure that its approval will put an end to the four years of institutional uncertainty that caused the social outbreak of 2019.

The left, on the other hand, describes the proposal as “dogmatic” because it perpetuates the neoliberal model that the regime installed and supposes “setbacks” in social rights.

If rejected, the current Constitution will remain in force and the constitutional debate will be closed at least during this term because Boric He has already said that he will not push for a third attempt.