The Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Carlos Montes, referred to the proposal for a new Constitution three weeks before the plebiscite on September 4. Although he did not make any predictions regarding the outcome of the vote, he did declare himself “very optimistic” about the referendum.
“I think the country is experiencing something very powerful, with many possibilities. Chile is experiencing a crisis that led to a very democratic process to deal with this issue, and it will be appreciated much more later, with the distance in history. It is a time of great wealth for the country. How does this end? I hope it ends very well. That is my expectation,” the minister said in Third.
In relation to the content of the constitutional text proposal, the former socialist deputy mentioned that “constitutional proposals always have more solid parts, more conveners and others less”.
“People are more and more interested, discovering or reflecting more. There has been a period of strong civic teaching and learning, although it is not yet massive. Most people feel that they have nothing to do with it, but I think that there is growth in the country. There is much more content debate than there is in campaigns in general. Here there has been concern about entering, people reading, in short, it will have implications for the future. Democracy will be better quality,” he said.
“I believe that in the deep issues there is a very important advance. The issue of democracy is very central. Civilizing issues, such as the environment, are there, and that seems very important to me. What are all the issues assumed in depth? There are many issues that will have to be resolved at the legal level, because at the constitutional level they were left very open,” he added.
Along the same lines, he expressed respect to the political system in the constitutional text. “I feel that the issue is well placed. Is it resolved at the institutional level? No, because that is going to be typical of other legislation. I am concerned about some things, for example, the parties. I think that Parliament also requires a debate , because for some reason it has a bad evaluation in the public. Now, the issue of balance: we have to see how the specific laws end up being regarding the relationship between the cameras, an issue that was overcome and became much more armed, “he said.
Generational differences in politics
In addition, he considered correct the will of the ruling parties to propose an agreement to reform the new Constitution, in the event that the Approval wins.
“I like the attitude of the parties to say ‘look, here the matrix of this proposal has many qualities, it has a lot of value, it includes great issues in Chile, it looks for alternatives for the future, but there are also things that are ambiguous, that have to be specified. , which can be interpreted in one way or another,'” said the socialist.
Another of the issues, which he addressed, is the generational difference between President Gabriel Boric and a large part of the government team, in that sense, he pointed out that the government has “a transforming project in a reality of tremendous complexity.”
“There is a difficult international, economic and political situation, with the effects of the pandemic and, in addition, a war. We also have a very unfavorable parliamentary situation for the Government, which requires very great experience and talent from all the actors, and that mistakes can be made, they can be made. And I see the Government with a President who has a clear direction, who is clear that transformations are made with majorities, from diversity,” he declared.
“I know that I am in a generation that we are different from and among our generation we are not the same in the value we give to politics. We have nuances, we have differences and they also have it, the younger ones also have it,” he added.
After the statements made by the Segpres minister, Giorgio Jackson, regarding the difference in political experience between the current government and the traditional political parties, Montes disagreed with the criticism of Jackson.
“They are different experiences, because it seems to one that someone’s opinion is above us and to another it does not seem to us. One learns to coexist between different generations, because perhaps the key is the dialogue between generations. I know Giorgio better, or Miguel Crispi, Gonzalo Winter, people who end up valuing their impulses. That learning is part of what allows us to build a better country and a better democracy, clearly,” he said.
In that sense, he reiterated that the current generations in politics have “different principles and values, because they tend to ponder things.”
“For example, when Boric tells the ministers ‘we can’t be in politics all day, we have to combine it with life’, my generation was dedicated to this all day, believing that we were building a new world and we were on the edge of the precipice with the dictatorship,” he said.
