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Plebiscite: the left forgot that Chile is a moderate country

The left, prey to its identitarianism, got drunk with the social explosion and forgot that Chile, at the end of the day, it is a moderate country.

This process cannot be explained without pointing out that 80% of Chileans want –and yearn for- a new Constitution. Nor can it be denied that the vast majority of the country agreed on a common diagnosis: the economic and social development achieved must be territorially democratized and passed on to the different social layers.

The Chilean left, led by Gabriel Boric, faced the largest window of opportunity in its history. Never before had such a clear option to generate a transformative project in the country that it lay its foundations in a constitutional text, with all the symbolism implied by extinguishing the constitution of Dictator Augusto Pinochet.

However, as Latin American history has written in repeated chapters of its almanac, the left once again tempted their designs, this time in Chile. She fell defeated prey to her own identitarianism. 80% of the entry plebiscite got them drunk to such an extent that the slogans of the social outbreak of October 2019, such as better health or education, gave way to plurinationality, territorial autonomy, eliminate the Senate and intervene in the judicial system.


Officialists lament after the triumph of the rejection in the constitutional plebiscite. Photo EFE

Relief

In a flash transformed a constitutional text into a government program. With this, they began to weaken the abysmal majority reached only months before.

Sunday night in Chile there were few celebrations. The overwhelming and historic majority was silent. The Chileans did not hug each other, but breathed a sigh of relief. In the main cities the “honks” were few and there were no scenes in the heart of the city.

The triumph of the Rejection was resounding.  Reuters Photo

The triumph of the Rejection was resounding. Reuters Photo

It is that what promised to be a process of encounter and “common home”, ended up transformed into a real trench warfarefull of violence to those who thought differently.

Without wanting it or wanting it, the left built a communication framework of moral superiority. He served him with a part of the youth, but it eventually turned against him. By forcing everyone who thought differently to silence, he forgot to listen.

Because those who thought differently stopped giving their opinion. And so, both the Constitutional Convention and the government of Gabriel Boric plunged into a microclimate of complacency and obtuse conviction.

votes everywhere

The rejection obtained, at the end of the day, the same number of votes as all the participants in the 2021 presidential election as a whole. The rejection got more votes than the entire universe of voters who voted in the entry plebiscite.

There is no other electoral option in history with a greater number of votes. The silent majority did not have campaign rallies or mass events. It was not mobilized in the streets, but in homes. He did not go out to shout, he preferred to give his opinion on whatsapp.

A separate note is also the strong and categorical message against political violence, a residual legacy of the marginality of the social protest of the outbreak. And there the left of the Broad Front will have an opportunity, to definitively disassociate itself from them and understand that its own governability is in the construction of a broad majority turning its gaze towards the center.

It is that this Sunday a part of the concertacionista center-left -tired of the ignoring the success of their governments during the last thirty years- she breathed a sigh of relief too. He felt that the country recovered its lost memory, the one where today the surnames of Aylwin and Lagos Escobar resonate.

It is symbolic that, at the same time that the right went out to face the microphones of the press, they did the same in another place in the capital. Both to thank the support for the triumphant option, one in which circumstantially they had to make teams with those who in other times were the rival.

At the end of the day, Chile shows for the umpteenth time that it is a moderate country. Who yearns for changes, but not dramatic ones. That he wants a better future, but without allowing a sector of society to perpetuate an ideological triumph over the rest of the population through a Constitution, as the military dictatorship did.

The silent majority has given the left and its identity convictions a balm of humility, an invitation to mature.

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