A group of deputies from the UDI, led by Juan Antonio Coloma, Sergio Bobadilla and Cristián Labbé, filed an official letter with the Comptroller General of the Republic to investigate the interventionism that the Government would be committing in the framework of the constitutional plebiscite on the 4th of September, after deputy Leonardo Soto (PS) published a video on his social networks —which he later deleted— claiming to be in a meeting with President Gabriel Boric at La Moneda Palace, coordinating the work they will carry out for the option “ I approve”.
However, both the Government and the leadership of the Socialist Party stood up to the accusation, assuring that the meeting with the President was only about the legislative agenda and not about the plebiscite. Even deputy Soto himself acknowledged that he made a mistake that “in no case can be attributed to the government.”
The socialist parliamentarian explained in a video that “we are here in the Carrera de La Moneda Hall, where the offices of President Gabriel Boric are, and we are together with the PS board”, adding that “we had a coordination meeting to be able to support with greater strength and coordination (sic) the Approval option”.
Subsequently, Deputy Soto used his social networks to clarify the situation. “About the previous post of the meeting in La Moneda, I must admit that there was an error on my part. It was just a protocol meeting in which the legislative agenda was discussed. I was wrong to link it in a video with the plebiscite,” he said on Twitter .
From La Moneda, the minister spokesperson for the Government, Camila Vallejo, in conversation with Chilevision, referred to the controversy over the video of deputy Soto. Given this, the Secretary of State affirmed that “these are protocol meetings where parliamentarians and parties are indeed free to present their ideas, but in no case coordination”, adding that “the deputy recognized an error in what was uploaded, because that is not part of the conversations and it is not what corresponds either as a Government”, emphasized Vallejo.
Meanwhile, the president of the PS, Paulina Vodanovic, consulted by Emol, He stressed that deputy Soto “acknowledged that there was an error and I’ll stick with that.” The recently assumed socialist helmsman reiterated that “of course it was a mistake. He recorded before entering the meeting, I didn’t realize it, he was talking to one side. What he says is not effective and he also does it before the I would not give it more importance than that, understanding that it is a serious mistake made by a deputy who should have the criteria to understand that in addition to a meeting that has not yet taken place, he should not be communicating it beforehand”.
Asked what topics they touched on at the meeting, Vodanovic assured that the appointment “was protocol, which is always done when there is a change of table in any party. What we talked about with the President and Minister Jackson was about the bills that We are interested in the security project proposal that the PS made a few days ago, the proposals that the Government is also probably going to make in terms of post-natal care or gender issues, women’s issues. We had a conversation in political terms and legislative agenda ” .
On the plebiscite in the meeting, the president of the PS revealed that “it was touched tangentially”. In his opinion, “one is not going to talk about it if you know that the President is not an actor in this. We did not go to that, it was a protocol meeting that corresponds to the new table, making ourselves available to the President and the Government for everything we have as a challenge”.
“When a deputy acknowledges that they use the second floor of La Moneda to hold their political meetings, there is an obvious violation of the principle of probity in relation to political disregard. And when that interventionism comes from the Government itself, it is more necessary than ever for an intervention by the comptroller general, applying exemplary sanctions and keeping in mind that no other official of President Boric’s administration can continue violating this principle ” , the deputies of the UDI lambasted for their part.
For the same reason, Coloma, Bobadilla and Labbé will file a complaint with the Comptroller General’s Office, so that they can not only investigate the possible electoral interventionism that the Executive is committing, violating the principle of political disregard established by the auditing body itself, but also “so that the use of resources and public spaces for proselytizing purposes is investigated, as well as the time at which the meeting would have been held.”
“It is no mystery to anyone that the Government is absolutely played by the Approval and that it will do everything in its power to reverse the trend of the latest polls, but when that interventionism is exposed, especially by someone from its own sector, The minimum is that it be investigated by the corresponding organisms. The Government and its coalition cannot claim to act with absolute impunity, much less believe that Deputy Soto’s simple clarification excuses him from being investigated by the Comptroller’s Office,” the UDI parliamentarians reiterated, assuring that “we hope that the comptroller will act with all the force of the law to sanction the use of the second floor of La Moneda as a campaign command.”
