After a commented statement in Lima, Peru, and after her return to the country, former President Michelle Bachelet published a letter this Saturday – through her Fundación Horizonte Ciudadano – where she explains her support for the I Approve option.
For the former president, “approving this New Constitution is the best starting point to make what has been denied us so long a reality. With the Approval it is easier to lead the transformations and go further.”
It may interest you:
Who in the next few days will leave her position as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights met this Thursday with President Boric, and today she goes out to delve into a decision that she had already expressed publicly. In this regard, she explained that in her experience as president she was able to verify “the enormous wall that the constitution born in dictatorship represents to make changes that benefit the great majority. That is why the 1980 text has become obsolete and we are writing another ”.
In this context, Bachelet pointed out that she sees “in the new Constitution an open path to live better, to conquer what Chile needs so much: more and better social rights, and more and better democracy.” In addition, she added that “it makes no sense to fear to our differences, to legitimate debate, one based on facts and respect, through which any lasting agreement is sustained”.
The former head of state adds in her letter that the dialogue was “which allowed us to recover democracy, conquer rights and aspire to a better life for all. I’m sure it won’t be any different now. We will have a new Constitution, because it is what the citizens ask for and need. And we will do it responsibly, advancing with agreements that will inevitably come. Because that country we are.
In addition, the former President specified that she considers Chile as a country “with many realities, with diverse identities, but united by the same dignity and called to be protected by the same solidarity.” Likewise, she stressed that the constitutional proposal is not perfect, but that it may be subject to future modifications.
“I said it and I repeat it: the text of the new Constitution is not perfect. But a text of this type should not be evaluated in the abstract. The proposal that is offered to the country was elaborated with an unprecedented plurality of voices and under particular conditions of national and global concerns. The natural thing is that it gives rise to revisions, adjustments, complements, as occurs with any constitutional process at the time of its implementation,” he pointed out.
A statement that makes her the first former president of the center-left governments, former Concertación or former New Majority, who openly decides to get involved in the Approval. It should be remembered that Eduardo Frei made explicit his vote in favor of Rejection, and Ricardo Lagos published a letter in which he is not fully involved with either of the two options. Whether or not this public support for Bachelet will be decisive in the last stretch of the campaign is something that can only be evaluated after the Plebiscite on September 4.
The full letter below:
