The rejection celebrates in the streets: "Chile wants a new Constitution, but one in which we all fit"

Voters for the Rejection option celebrate their victory in the streets of Santiago this Sunday. MARTIN BERNETTI (AFP)

Pablo Salazar waves a Chilean flag and hugs his friends.

"We won!", He shouts euphorically to the cars that pass by the Sweden street, in the Santiago commune of Providencia.

There they waited early for the results of this Sunday's elections, the date that he had not slept in for months - "since I began to see the disaster that the Convention was," he says.

Pablo, 25, is a political coordinator at the Universidad de los Andes and a law and medicine student.

He celebrates because he believes that although 80% of citizens demanded a new Constitution in the 2020 plebiscite and the polls continue to show that this demand continues, the proposal put to the consideration of Chileans this Sunday was a "nonsense."

“I feel happy and hopeful.

That's the word.

I feel like what happened today is going to bring us much closer."

He says.

The text questions the statist meaning that, according to him, was intended to be imposed.

"The Chilean believes in freedom and believes that the State should be at the service of the State and not the other way around."

A few steps away from him, Italo Sepúlveda, 56, also celebrates, but without a flag and without friends.

“Having approved that proposed Constitution would have been like putting a tombstone on top of us.

There is talk that Chile woke up, well, today it was shown that yes, that it woke up”, he says.

His criticism, like that of several of those who met on that corner of a wealthy sector of Santiago, is to the Convention that drafted the text.

“It was a circus.

I followed each session and it was getting worse and worse”, he says and gives examples: “Rodrigo Rojas Vade (constituent) was accused of faking cancer, Giovanna Grandón (another constituent) dressed up as Pikachu, the Pokémon character, during a plenary session .

The debates were childish, as much as the costumes.

The country couldn't be so stunned as to vote Approve,” he notes.

A caravan of voters for the Rejection celebrates in the streets of Santiago, this Sunday. Alberto Valdés (EFE)

The rejection of the new Constitution was categorically imposed.

With 99.95% of the polling stations counted, the rejection of the proposed text submitted to a plebiscite exceeded 61.87% of the votes.

While the president, Gabriel Boric, spoke on the national network, and acknowledged "the forceful message" that the Chileans sent, a Colombian celebrated from the Uber he drives in the country's capital.

Kevin López is 24 years old and he has lived in Santiago for 14 years.

He was able to vote because he is a naturalized citizen and he did so against the text because he believes that the country's security and economy were at risk.

"I lived in extreme poverty, I had to leave my country as a child displaced by violence," he says.

Kevin voted yes in the entry plebiscite that he overwhelmingly chose to change the Constitution, but he believes the proposal further divided an already polarized society.

“Special justice for indigenous peoples is an idea that sounds great, but it divides, segregates.

Chile wants a new Constitution, but one in which we all fit”.

Almost 13 million people voted this Sunday, in a day that gives way to a new political moment in Chile.

"I hope that the Government knows how to read the result and take it with humility," says Cristóbal Lira, a member of the Independent Democratic Union (UDI) and mayor of the Lo Barnechea commune, who is approached to congratulate him.

His position was known and the triumph of rejection feels like his own achievement.

"The proposal had so many things contrary to what Chile is, that is why we take today as a victory for the country," he says.

He says that the text was very "radical" and that the question now is whether Boric is willing to move away from that sector now that the Chileans have decided.

“There must be a new Assembly, but how are we going to do it?

Who is going to be there?” asks the right-wing politician.

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