Boric: "I want to invite the Republican Party not to make the same mistake that we made"

Chilean President Gabriel Boric prepares to cast his vote.CHILEAN PRESIDENCY (via REUTERS)

The Chilean president, Gabriel Boric, addressed the citizens this Sunday night to recognize the resounding victory of the Republican Party, of the extreme right, in the elections of the 51 councilors who will draft the new constitutional proposal.

The president, who has spoken "of the undeniable growth of the Republican Party", has given him advice with a taste of

to the formation led by José Antonio Kast: "The previous process failed, among other things, because we did not know how to listen to each other among those who thought differently," he said, referring to the 62% who in September rejected the text that sought to bury the Constitution inherited from the dictatorship by Augusto Pinochet.

"I want to invite the Republican Party not to make the same mistake that we made," he added from the Palacio de La Moneda.

It is Boric's first deep acknowledgment of the reasons for the failure of the previous process, where a convention marked by the left and the independents wrote a partisan proposal that was widely rejected.

"When the pendulum of history swings from one extreme to the other in a short time, it is always the most vulnerable populations that suffer from the confrontation between the elites," warned the president about the 180-degree turn that the citizen vote has experienced in the elections of the last three years in Chile.

The Republican Party, which has never been in favor of changing the Magna Carta, has obtained 35% of the votes this Sunday and has become the main political force in the South American country.

In October 2020,

Boric has assured that this Sunday a new stage of the constituent process that began in 2019, the year of the social outbreak, "in difficult times for our Homeland" has been completed.

The presidents of the political parties channeled the discontent of the citizens in the so-called Agreement for Peace of November 2019, which established a constituent path.

The demands of the protests, Boric warned tonight, are still present.

The Chilean president, who has been in office for 15 months, stressed that it is a commitment of the political class to respond to those citizens who took to the streets to protest and end the abuses, guarantee decent pensions, distribute wealth more fairly and decentralize decisions, among others.

"We once again have an opportunity to build through dialogue and I find a new Magna Carta that best represents the desires and type of country that as Chileans we want to live," said the 37-year-old left-wing president.

Since Boric arrived at La Moneda, his formation, the Broad Front, has not known of triumphs at the polls.

The failure of the first constitutional attempt hit his government hard.

In the midst of a process of changing priorities, giving a greater sense of urgency to the issue of security –the main concern of Chileans–, the left-wing Administration must now face the extension of the extreme right and the weakening of the parties of the ruling party (the government list obtained 28% of the votes).

The union of the pro-government forces did not even get enough seats to veto the proposals of the constituent council.

If the right-wing parties work together, they don't even need to sit down to negotiate.

“This process cannot be a

but to put Chile and its people ahead before partisan or personal interests," said the president, who asked the traditional right-wing parties to "build great agreements."

To his own, he asked for unity.

The two coalitions that support the Government (the Communist Party and the Broad Front, on the one hand, and the moderate Democratic Socialism, on the other) have led a series of disagreements in Congress, which has meant an extra complication for the president move your legislative agenda forward in a Parliament where you do not have a majority.

"If we are able to lower the barriers and overcome mistrust and polarization, I have no doubt that we will be able to achieve it," the president snapped.

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