Just one week before the plebiscite, on September 4, where the constitutional proposal will be approved or rejected, Carolina Tohá (PPD), who was minister in the first government of Michelle Bachelet, president of the Party for Democracy and mayor of Santiago, assured understand the confidence of the center-left due to the rejection that if that option wins, the right will be available to draft a new Constitution.
“As people from the center-left who have lived for years the blockade that has been in Parliament to make changes, I cannot understand why they trust that the right is going to open the doors to what they have always closed them to” , assured.
“We have no certainty of what path awaits us in case we win the Rejection,” he added.
-You have been one of the leaders of the campaign, what would you say to someone who still has doubts?
The constitutional proposal takes charge of the need to have a State that responds and is responsible to the citizens. The feeling of an impotent State, or that ultimately transfers its responsibilities to another, is at the heart of the malaise. The State can act with others, it can add private parties, make alliances, but what it cannot do is wash its hands.
–Is it a revenge text?
I would rather invite you to read it. It is clearly a text for building a path to a more equitable, inclusive and respectful society. And to do so, he did the exercise of listening and sitting down at the table with those who had claims against the social order. To think that you can skip that step is immature. And I see some tempted to do that. Proposing that now a different process would be carried out, and what would be impeccable would be based on the fact that the sectors that sat here for the first time would be left off the table. That road is not going to lead us to heal the country’s wounds.
-But its critics say that it is written from rage…
The constitutional process seeks to be a response to a rage that was clearly expressed in the social outbreak. Assuming that sitting down at the table to work on the constitutional text was going to heal that rage from one moment to the next is totally deluded. This is a path. I believe that it is a mature way of dealing with the fractures that we have and the answers given in the text point in the right direction.
-There are those who have pointed out that the lists of independents and social movements caused fragmentation and lack of agreement within the Constituent Convention. How would you include them in a scenario where the Repeal wins and a new Convention is called?
I don’t have a design of how a process has to be done if it wins the Rejection. My commitment and my conviction is that the path that will best allow us to move forward is that of Approval. However, this is not just a problem of the electoral system, we had to take charge of the fact that the political system was not in a position by itself to articulate society for a new pact.
There it was possible to welcome those voices, a dialogue with all the difficulties that there were, with the tense process and the wounds, it was possible to produce a text in the requested time, which is a more than reasonable magna carta. I’m not saying it, Chilean and foreign constitutionalists say it.
For issues where there may be concerns – I have several that the text did not resolve satisfactorily – there is a reliable way to resolve them. On the other hand, stepping back and starting from scratch and putting alternatives on the table such as leaving out the badly called ‘noisy’ sectors, I don’t think it’s a safe path at all, I think it has enormous risks, and it’s also very likely that it costs us a lot to agree on what that path is.
–There is criticism from the right that it has not presented an agreement that provides a roadmap on the next steps if the Rejection wins and that they have not been clear if they would be calling for a new Constitutional Convention or how it would be formed. Do you think it’s a mistake?
More than an information error, they do not have a path to propose. That’s why they don’t report it.. I think it is clear that in the case of the Approval a text is being offered that has done everything possible so that people can get to know it. And besides, the Approval parties made an agreement and signed it. Of his fist and letter regarding the reforms that are going to be promoted.
In the case of the Rejection, it is true that the quorum was lowered -to 4/7 to reform the Constitution-, but with the new quorums it still depends on the right. The right has not even defined whether it is in favor of making reforms in Congress, of making a Convention, or a committee of experts. And the commitments he made are utterly vague.
–Regarding the agreement of the center-left, is it an option that the government does not have a majority in Congress to guarantee the reforms proposed in the agreement of the ruling parties? Guillermo Teillier (PC) pointed out that “we cannot guarantee that we are going to do such things because there will have to be a popular debate on this”, although he later clarified what he said when he assured that the Communist Party “will push the agreement reached”.
Many people have a distance from the Communist Party, but what no one can say is that it is a party that does not fulfill its commitments. But even if it did not comply, I am sure that all the rest of the political forces, including the right, share the tone of those reforms. I don’t see the right voting against eliminating, for example, the parliamentary spending initiative or restoring the state of emergency – promises included in the center-left pact. So the votes to make the reforms are there.
-Has this proposed Constitution caused a break in the former Concertación?
Democratic Socialism and all the parties of the former Concertación are all in the Approval. There are people who are in the Rejection, most of them are in a more centrist critical tone for a long time. More than a division of the political forces of the center-left, there are people who crossed over to the other side.
-He wrote about the episode of Minister Segpres, George Jackson, who said “Our scale of values and principles around politics is not only far from the previous government, but I think that compared to a generation that preceded us”, about this he said that the serious thing was not the accusation, but the “lightness with which he said what he said”. Do you think there is a degree of arrogance or pointing fingers at those who position themselves in the opposite group?
What I see is an accelerated evolution of the Broad Front generation, it is a sector that has been learning rapidly as they have been taking on greater responsibilities. But in this process some symptoms of the original ethos still emerge. That he was very judgmental and put himself in a pulpit above the others. From time to time that comes out again, but it is no longer the dominant thing. I think that learning is taking place quickly, you learn hard at times.
-Is there availability to assume a ministry if President Gabriel Boric requests it?
You can’t talk about the availability of things that haven’t happened. It is something that is in the press, not in reality. I honestly don’t see it feasible. Those who mention it are trying to prevent it from happening, so it is better to take it at a distance.
-Taking into account that you have been configured as a key figure within the Approval command, which could be a replacement letter in favor of the new moment of the government after the plebiscite, are you not afraid that assuming this position will mean receiving friendly fire from sectors of the government and reopen the issue of the investigation that the Comptroller’s Office began in her term as mayor of Santiago in 2016?
Politics is always super ungrateful. I think the important thing is that one is always very connected with the reasons why one is in this type of activity. With that conviction you can overcome the bitter episodes, with few convictions it is honestly not worth being in politics.
