Miami, Sep 7 (EFE) .- The former heads of state and government of the Democratic Initiative of Spain and the Americas (IDEA) underlined on Wednesday their appreciation to the people of Chile for “the renewed, exemplary and peaceful exercise of their democracy” and the “exemplarity” that it represents for Latin America.
In a statement regarding the plebiscite on the proposal for a new Chilean Constitution, which was rejected by a majority, the former presidents highlighted “the compliance that the President of the Republic (Gabriel Boric) made expressly with the popular will.”
The statement mentions the fact that the leftist Boric “had publicly championed and made his own the fundamental text” rejected by 62% of those who participated in the consultation held last Sunday, September 4.
“It is worth emphasizing the historical significance of what happened with the constitutional process and its final outcome, due to its exemplary nature for Latin America, even more mediating the purpose of Chileans to continue advancing towards a constitutional modernization shared by all,” underlines the statement. .
At this point they ask “the political leadership to advance in the parliamentary and legislative consensus necessary to urgently address the expectations of well-being and progress that, in an urgent way, the population demands.”
IDEA recalls that in recent decades “different processes of constitutional change or reform marked by their partisan nature” have taken place in Latin America.
Some of these processes were “encouraged from power to liquidate the principle of alternation” and left aside that a Constitution is “a pact of guarantees of fundamental rights and assurance of all rights for all people, within a State of Law committed to the idea that majorities cannot crush minorities in a democracy.”
The former presidents do not avoid in their statement criticism of the text rejected in Chile, which they consider to be “in line with other similar ones approved and in force in countries where democracy has disappeared, deteriorated or lost its quality.”
This statement was signed by former Chilean President Eduardo Frei Tagle; Jose Maria Aznar (Spain); Óscar Arias S., Rafael Ángel Calderón and Miguel Ángel Rodríguez (Costa Rica); Felipe Calderon (Mexico); Alfredo Cristiani (El Salvador), and Iván Duque M., Andrés Pastrana and Álvaro Uribe Vélez (Colombia).
Also Federico Franco and Juan Carlos Wasmosy (Paraguay); Lucio Gutierrez, Jamil Mahuad and Osvaldo Hurtado (Ecuador); Luis Alberto Lacalle Herrera (Uruguay); Mauricio Macri (Argentina); Carlos Mesa and Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga (Bolivia), and Mireya Moscoso and Ernesto Perez Balladares (Panama).
(c) EFE Agency
