Post by account_disabled on Feb 18, 2024 0:27:46 GMT -4
Polling place in Temuco, Chile. Reuters photo "There is an exhaustion of citizens regarding the constitutional process where neither in the first process nor in this one was there a consensus on what they wanted," Carolina Lefort, a 42-year-old lawyer, tells AFP. "It is striking that this is happening in Chile, a country in the Latin American context recognized by a good political class, open, tolerant, dialoguing and always seeking agreements and consensus," says Michael Shifter, former president of the Inter-American Commission. Center for dialogue studies and teacher. from Georgetown University. That fatigue and satiety was experienced in the streets, where the campaign was barely perceptible. This week's closures were very small.
The increase in violent crimes - which Chileans Europe Mobile Number List associate with the arrival of foreign immigrants, mostly Venezuelans - and an economy that is not taking off after a strong adjustment aimed at containing inflation, now concentrate the attention of the population. Four years after taking to the streets to demand greater social justice, residents now want more police, order and security. «It is another Chile. The country has changed dramatically (…) and in some ways it has become a more Latin American country. Chileans always considered themselves an exception, a more European country and not like their neighbors, and now they are a little more like them," adds Shifter.
Although reformed several times in democracy, changing Pinochet's Constitution was an old aspiration of the Chilean left, which points to its illegitimate origin and the poor protection it establishes of social rights such as health, housing, pensions and education. But faced with an even more conservative proposal, the Chilean left-wing parties called for voting "against." The "lesser evil" in the face of a text that further deepens the neoliberal model. "I prefer to return to the starting point, which is not 100% the Constitution of the dictatorship, rather than having a bad text that harms all Chileans and that deeply divides us," said Carolina Leitao, spokesperson for the "against" campaign.