The Electoral Service (Servel) released the list of candidates for the election of Constitutional Counselors. This will have the participation of three 100% independent candidates and two of Mapuche origin.
In the case of the original peoples, three candidacies were presented: two Mapuche who were accepted and one from the Atacameño people who was rejected.
This is Rudecindo Espíndola, a farmer and activist who stood in the previous conventional elections but did not win. On this occasion he lacked the sworn statement from the commune in which he resides. Therefore, the missing document will be entered into the Servel within the days within the term.
In this regard, Espíndola pointed out that “the idea is to represent the greatest force and the greatest voices with the Quechua, Aymara, monkeys, collas, Diaguitas brothers: we must not forget that we are many pre-existing peoples.”
He added that his interest in the candidacy lies in “continuing to express, on the one hand, the discontent of the pre-existing people due to territorial issues, water, invisibility, the same extractivism that exists here, and also in the idea of contributing and in son of peace: that is the idea of talking and seeing that at some point the Chilean State recognizes us, that is what we are looking for”.
On the other hand, the 100% independent candidates are Jorge Sepúlveda for the Araucanía Region, Claudio Barrientos for Magallanes and Liset Quilodrán for Aysén, who had to get 3,000 signatures within 14 days.
Quilodrán affirmed that he seeks to “defend the social demands of the people, which are also fair” and indicated that “sometimes the parties have a very desktop vision and little land.”
“It seems to me that I defend things like the preferential right of parents to educate their children, and that was not seen in the proposal that was made for the new Constitution, freedom of worship also interests me because I am a Christian,” he concluded.
