The ex-president Ricardo Lagos participated in the Senate Future Challenges Commission on Monday. After the activity, the former head of state addressed national news and commented that “Chile is not up to what it once was.”
“Chile is not up to what it was. Anyone who has a friend abroad is going to ask: What happened to you Chileans? At what point were you shocked?” said the former president.
“When you see a 14-year-old who shoots down another… well, everyone knows that today in Chile there are hitmen and that they are hired. What was not known is that there are hitmen who are hired at the age of 14. What a drama,” he added.
“I think this is a reality that forces us to think very deeply (…) And I think that with this effort that is being made here, in this room, yes, in this room that has so much history, maybe We can turn the page so sad that we have today, and start another story as so many times in that room another story was thought of,” he said.
constitutional process
Lagos also referred to the dialogues between the political parties to continue with the constituent process, after the population rejected the text proposed by the Convention in the plebiscite on September 4.
“On the constitutional issue, I want to point out that the most important thing there is that we cannot continue with a constitutional system that does not have a clearly defined electoral system. I want to be very specific, we cannot have twenty-something political parties, it is unreal, but what is worse, it forces small politics ”, he commented.
Along these lines, he stated that “political parties must have 5%, 6% or 7% or else they dissolve (…) It is good business to be the owner of a party. Here in this room you have to say things as they are, and I don’t want to hear that it’s more democratic, having 10 or 25 parties. I’m very hard on this, but we all know what we’re talking about. And the country is going to judge and we all know the way to do it.”
“Historically, what has Chile been? Two games, three games, six, seven? Two on the right, two on the left, one or two in the middle. That is the constitutional history of Chile at the level of political parties, ”he said.
Finally, he expressed that the exit plebiscite is “essential” because it will give the “seal and final legitimacy.”
