Rodrigo Rojas Vade: The voter who cheated on Chile with invented cancer resigns | International

The Chilean conventional Rodrigo Rojas Vade, who invented being sick with cancer to build a political figure, when in reality he would suffer from syphilis, announced on Monday that he was resigning from the body which has until July 2022 to offer Chile a new Constitution. He does so 16 days after a journalistic investigation revealed his lie, which forced him to confess to public opinion, and in the midst of the prosecution’s investigation after the complaint of the same board of directors of the conventional. “I will not participate, log in remotely or participate in any other vote, regardless of my health. His role [de la convención] it is too important to be a difficulty in its functioning or its result, ”said the 37-year-old man, who has been one of the visible faces of the social outbreak of 2019 and has built a career today. ascending on the basis of false disease. .

Rojas Vade’s situation was untenable. Since the deception was known on Saturday, September 4, the affair threatens to obscure the delicate work of the convention, the institutional path on which Chile is betting to get out of its social and political crisis. The police arrived during the day to question as witnesses both the president of the organ, Elisa Loncon, and the vice-president, Jaime Bassa, member of the board of directors who asked the prosecution to open the investigation. . Members of the Rojas Vade group, the Constituent, starred in embarrassing episodes in front of the press, refusing to talk about the issue: “We are not going to talk about the issue anymore,” Constituent Natalia Henríquez said. Various groups of cancer patients and medical specialists have expressed their pain at the lie and their outrage. His lawyer, Tomás Ramírez, has granted several interviews in recent days to investigate his state of health. After the hypothesis that he was suffering from HIV – after the outbreak of the case, Rojas Vade himself declared that he suffered from a stigmatizing disease, without giving more information – his representative assured that he suffered from syphilis, Behçet’s disease and idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura.

In the interview which revealed the affair, Rojas Vade – known as Pelao Vade– opened the door to resigning: “I feel like I have to retire. I have nothing else to do at the convention. “He did not attend the convention again, as he was on sick leave. He also did not deliver his version directly, only through the through a statement, a few days later: “I will defend myself in court, because I am not a criminal”, he declared on September 9, without mentioning a possible resignation. In the video published today ‘ hui, Rojas Vade apologizes again and assures that the money he received as part of a solidarity activity was used “to settle acquired debts” for his medical problems. “Likewise, I will not accept money for the days that I have not worked without justification and as soon as the mechanism to submit my formal resignation exists, I will make use of it, “the airline extruder said.

Rojas Vade referred to the obstacles that the convention has to revoke it, as currently no regulations allow it. The body, which is in the last stage of the debate on the rules of procedure, three months after its start on July 4, has not yet received the formal resignation of the constituent. “The convention will seek through the existing rules or those which are about to be created the mechanisms to materialize this decision”, declared this afternoon the deputy vice-president of the table, Pedro Muñoz. Since then, the convention has had to settle administrative and financial problems.

In turn, another dilemma opens, but about its possible replacement. Rojas Vade himself raised the issue in his video today: “From now on, I express my hope that 155 people will defend the draft political constitution that they will hand over to the country for ratification in order to leave behind the disastrous Constitution of 1980 ”, he assured, by designating someone to replace him so that the body continues to be composed of 155 people. But for the conventional right, which is in the minority, it is a ruse: “The Constitution clearly regulates what happens with the holidays. The independents [como Rojas Vade] they are not replaced. There is no vacuum. Hopefully, the conventional ones don’t get creative and want to break the rules again out of sheer voluntarism, ”Constanza Hube wrote on Twitter.

Rojas Vade rose to fame for demonstrating while suffering from acute mixed lymphoid leukemia, one of the most serious cancers in existence that attacks the blood and bone marrow. According to his initial version of this ex-air operator, when the riots started in October 2019, he had recently abandoned the treatment. “I don’t fight cancer. I have trouble paying for chemo. Dignified health for Chile, ”said the poster with which he appears in the photograph that made him known on social networks almost two years ago. Since then, the man has gone to protest every Friday with his shirt off, no eyebrows or hair on his face or head. He arrived at the epicenter of the protests in Santiago de Chile with patches, masks – before covid-19 – and even with a catheter. He became an icon of the so-called frontline struggle, the group of protesters who clashed with the Carabinieri in the peak weeks of the protest. He always seemed ready to confront the police and portrayed him through photographs on social media.

For almost two years, he told his story in different spaces. He opened a blog where he shared the details of his treatment. He was called Cancer, unfiltered reality, which is now closed. On Instagram, he uploaded photos of his exams, hospitalizations and bodily injuries, still using the #cancerfighter. He said he owed a private clinic about $ 480,000 because of his illness. Later, when he was elected, in his declaration of interests and assets, he declared that he owed a Chilean bank about 35,000 dollars “to finance chemotherapy treatment for cancer”.

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