This Thursday, President Gabriel Boric arrived at the headquarters of the Democracy and Development Foundation to meet with former President Ricardo Lagos, in an appointment that reveals a government strategy that seeks to bring positions closer to the sector linked to the former Concertación – where Lagos is constituted as an influential figure–, this after internal questioning of the constituent process by some voices from the Socialist Party (PS) and the Christian Democracy (DC). All this in the face of uncertainty about what the final position of the founder of the PPD will be regarding the exit plebiscite on September 4 and if he will lean towards the controversial formula of “approve to reform.”
Through his Twitter account, the Head of State published a photo with the former President and, in broad strokes, gave an account of the purpose of the expected meeting. “Today I met with former President Lagos to talk about Chile and its tremendous challenges. The history of our Republic is always greater than each one of us separately, and it is good to listen and learn from those who came before us. We continue!”, Boric detailed, in the aforementioned social network.
A meeting that takes place only a week after Ricardo Lagos decided to withdraw from the controversial closing ceremony of the Constitutional Convention, due to “existing difficulties between the capacity that must be respected.” Through a letter, the former President assured that he has had, since the beginning of the functions of the Convention, a very close relationship with his work and his tasks. However, he valued the contribution of his government and the other administrations of the former Concertación to lay the foundations for the reforms to the 1980 Constitution.
A week ago, and as a result of the aforementioned letter, President Gabriel Boric himself assured that he would seek to meet with Lagos in the short term, something that finally materialized during yesterday’s session. “I think it is very good that the contribution that all those who preceded us have made to get us to this moment is recognized, and what Ricardo Lagos says in his letter, the former President, regarding the contributions he made to the process, I think that only enhances the work that has been done,” said Boric, seeking to build bridges to the sector led by Lagos.
For the political analyst and academic secretary of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of the Autonomous University, Tomás Duval, it is an “intelligent and timely decision” by the Government, which responds quickly to the letter from Ricardo Lagos, only one week after publication. For Duval, this strategy enables President Boric to lessen a source of conflict with a sector that has been particularly critical of his management, bringing Lagos closer to the Approval option, even though the former President has not yet made public his decision regarding the exit plebiscite.
This, while the president of the Democracy and Development Foundation is developing an agenda marked by meetings with conventioneers, political figures, leaders and businessmen, whose objective is to clarify whether he will approve or reject the new constitutional text. It is also a meeting that strengthens a relationship with the former Concertación, which has suffered moments of tension, reflected in the figures of DC parliamentarians, such as senators Matías Walker and Ximena Rincón, and also in the socialist senators Álvaro Elizalde and Fidel Espinoza, who have contributed to expanding internal sources of conflict between the official forces.
