Independent constituents, engines of the nu …

Independent candidates from traditional political parties to dominate Convention to draft new Constitution in Chile, after winning 48 of 155 seats in last weekend’s election. If we add the 40 elected voters who are not politically active but who came to compete linked to a party’s quota, the number of independents reaches 64% of the body, according to the Observatory of the New Constitution. The ruling right-wing bloc Vamos por Chile has not even obtained a third of the representation at the Convention, a percentage that would have given him some negotiating power to stop the scope of the more gradual changes that are expected.

Chilean voters reflected in a string of candidates What raised the demands that were emanating from the streets during the 2019 outbreak, among which you can find social activists, environmentalists, teachers, writers, journalists, lawyers and media figures. Page 12 He spoke with some of them to find out their main concerns and expectations for a historic moment for the country.

Independent constituents have come to the Convention in different ways. Several lists corresponded to candidates who are not active but who were associated with or with the seal of a traditional political party. This is the case with Daniel Stingo, the most voted last weekend, which presented itself as independent but under the protection of the leftist list of the Democratic Revolution. “I imagined a positive result because in the streets the support, the affection and the adhesion of the people were immense. Now alright receiving so many votes (over 111,000) was impossible to predict“Stingo explains to this newspaper.

The 55-year-old lawyer says he was not surprised by the poor performance of sectors allied to President Sebastián Piñera due to the poor result of the plebiscite of October 25 last year and “because We noticed the disaffection of citizens with the positions of the right and the total lack of harmony of this same group with social and political reality.Although he is the most voted candidate, Stingo does not think of chairing the Convention and will instead seek to contribute to the development of a “catalog of social rights” among which he mentions “a universal health plan, of quality and timely, free, quality and inclusive education, a social security system with decent pensions and the right to decent housing ”.

The only independent candidate to run on a single list was Rodrigo Logan, elected by District 9. The more than 34 thousand votes obtained allowed him to overcome complete lists to which is known as “citizen lawyer” for his presence in television shows. “The constituent process had a valuable promise that it was open to ordinary people and it was not. There had to be a message that broke this “ spurious equality ” that the D’hont system talks about.“, explains the reasons why he cut himself. Faced with the election results, Logan has been” very anxious and very happy “since “From 1810 to this day we have never had the opportunity to have a constitution of, for and by citizenship”.

Beyond Logan’s outlier are the full lists presented outside of matches. Among the most successful is that of “Independientes No Neutrales (INN)”, which obtained places for 11 of its candidates. One of the voters elected by this space is the ecologist Juan José Martin.

Martin is president and co-founder of Cverde, the Chilean youth organization for sustainable development. “We feel super proud and calm to have been elected, because from the first moment we made a bet: we will be dedicated to bringing the voice and priority of those who don’t vote, nature and animals“, Emphasizes Martin in the dialogue with this newspaper. For this reason, he is betting on what he calls an “ecocentric” Constitution.

Martin was aware that electorally, this platform could move them away from the priority of the majority of Chileans who live day to day, but “we felt it was in line with our vision.” At 25, he plans to bring to the Convention “social and environmental movements very far removed from traditional politics”.. The young environmentalist offers a Magna Carta “of reality and data, no longer of ideologies prefabricated by other groups”.

Even if Among the independent lists, arguably the biggest surprise of the past weekend was the so-called “People’s List,” which reached 27 of the 155 seats at stake, nearly equaling the Communist Party and the Broad Front, which together added 28 seats. The Popular List represents an articulation of progressive candidates without political affiliation, although very attached to reality.. Supported in a story born in the bowels of the historic mobilizations of Plaza Dignidad, they were not in the projections of analysts or the Chilean media. Based on effective campaigns on social networks and in the streets of the country, they added around 884 thousand votes.

Among the 24 Conventionalists chosen from the Popular List, stands out the figure of Giovanna Grandón, kindergarten teacher and school transport driver who became known by attending the marches disguised as Pikachu, the Japanese cartoon character. And although she failed to add a bench to the Convention, the journalist Paulina Acevedo celebrates that thanks to her candidacy, the space added 15% of the vote at the national level, “a blow to the presidency of classical politics, since the people said that anyone has the right to write the Constitution”.

“When the Carabineros stopped me as a professional, it highlighted my candidacy and forced me to campaign more actively,” recalls Acevedo. At dawn on March 12, she was apprehended while covering the work of removing the statue of General Baquedano in the iconic Plaza Dignidad. “It was a totally arbitrary and illegal situation. For the same reason I was detained for 14 hours and over four hours above a handcuffed police car to finally be acquitted of all charges, ”she points out.

In this sense, the journalist from the Citizens’ Observatory declares that in-depth reform of the Carabineros is needed, “an institution which is over 100 years old and which is absolutely discredited for human rights violations but also because of situations of corruption and embezzlement of public funds “.

But This institutional renewal in Chile could not be understood without considering the importance of feminisms.. “On behalf of the 8-M coordinator, we are very happy because comrade Alondra Carrillo has joined her and with her peoples’ feminism entered by five members of the Constituent, Feminist and Constitutional Platform“, says Javiera Manzi, activist and spokesperson for the coordinator.

“Today we see that the parties of order have failed and it is precisely the sectors mobilized outside the parties that are advancing”Adds Manzi. For a new Constitution from a feminist perspective, the young sociologist maintains that it is necessary “the recognition of unpaid work, sexual and reproductive rights and the guarantee of social rights now privatized”. The effective application of these allegations will finally allow implement the “feminist program against the precariousness of life”.