The ex-president Ricardo Lagos addressed the debate around the proposal for a new Constitution, which will be plebiscited on September 4. In this regard, he valued the commitment of Chile Vamos – reaffirmed yesterday by the opposition coalition – for a new Constitution.
“What happened yesterday is important and significant, in the sense that they are parties that until yesterday were very reluctant to be able to understand the needs that had to be done,” said the former president after leading the international seminar “The challenges of Governance: Latin America in the 21st century”, held at the Santiago Congress.
“It’s a positive sign, in the right direction, and let’s hope that now things will get done, because a good part of what we’ve had is this pressurized boiler where no progress could be made,” Lagos said.
“I think that the progress that has been made, for example, everything related to the economic and social rights that must be guaranteed, I think it is very important,” he added.
Likewise, he stated that “establishing the plebiscite is a good idea, and that exit plebiscite, then, is going to give an answer. It also seems to me, and it is what I have pointed out, that no matter what happens, the constitutional debate, therefore I have been concerned to propose an option, so that the constitutional debate reaches a successful conclusion”.
In a letter from Chile Vamos, titled “A New and Good Constitution for Chile,” the coalition reiterated its commitments to a new Constitution, as expressed in July.
“Reiterating our conviction expressed a month ago, in the case of winning the Rejection option in the plebiscite next September, we commit ourselves to reaching a broad and transversal agreement that allows for a new Constitution for Chile, through a mechanism where citizens influence directly on the procedure to follow and on the text that ends up ruling in the country,” they said in the letter.
On the matters in which they reaffirmed their commitment, are the social and democratic State of law, new presidentialism, modernization and expansion of fundamental rights, constitutional recognition of indigenous peoples, among others.
