Chile has closed the campaign and is preparing for a historic plebiscite on a new Constitution

There were parties with flags, music, speeches and strong calls to defend democracy. Supporters of the “Refusal” and “Approval” of the text of the new Constitution in Chile closed their campaigns with grand acts Thursday evening, at the end of a day that had been marked by a series of acts of violence, including a strong attack on President Gabriel Boric’s brother in the heart of Santiago.

This Friday the capital woke up cold again, with that ocher haze of pollution that usually darkens the sky, and in a classic silence of the closed season that precedes the elections.

The fuss over the attempted attack on Cristina Kirchner has also crept into the news and comments, but the news on the other side of the mountain range has failed to undermine the issue that dominates public opinion here, Sunday’s plebiscite on the new Constitution.

In a mandatory election – a fact that stands out here, since last year’s presidential elections were optional – some 15 million Chileans will have to express whether or not they want the country to adopt the text that was completed last July, after a year of work by a private voter Convention who tried to respond to the demands of the explosion of anger that shook the country in 2019, calling for greater equality of opportunity and democratization in the political system.

And when polls show an almost certain victory for the “Rejection” of the proposal, the “I Approve” campaign – which Gabriel Boric’s government has strongly supported – sought to show strength and enthusiasm in a massive act that took several blocks from the the Alameda, in the center of Santiago.

In the same place where Boric and his followers celebrated their triumph in the second round of the presidential elections on December 19, the “approval” command summoned Chilean musicians, humorists and folklorists.

A few kilometers from there, in the Metropolitan Park, the supporters of the “Refusal” have carried out a much less massive but strongly symbolic act. There were speeches and appeals to continue the process of democratization and change in Chile but with a slogan: “all together”.

It is that those who oppose the text emphasize it many sectors have been excluded from the decision-making process and that most of the articles do not reflect what Chilean society really wanted when it agreed, after the 2019 revolt, to write a new Constitution that would end up erasing the legacy of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship.

soldiers on the streets

After an intense campaign, in which there have been some violent episodes, preparations have already been made this Friday for the large security deployment that is being prepared for this weekend.

More than 27,000 soldiers will be deployed throughout the country, to ensure a clear day, amid the tension that has grown in recent days with the new arson in the Araucanía area, in the south of the country, where the Mapuche conflict seems to ‘other than solved.

Four suspects of attacks on vehicles and property in the south were arrested this Thursday, including Ernesto Llaitul, son of Héctor Llaitul, leader of Coordinadora Arauco Malleco (CAM), an indigenous group that has claimed responsibility for several attacks in southern Chile. against property of landowners, and which has ties to the Mapuche Ancestral Resistance (RAM) movement, accused of crimes and similar attacks in Argentina.

Héctor Llaitul was arrested last week, with a clear signal from the Boric government to the center-right and center-right that this is an issue that previous governments have failed to resolve and it is an increasingly hot brick.

Boric seems to be clear that his chances of celebrating a victory in Sunday’s plebiscite are practically nil, and tried in the last few days to track down an election that, if the ballot boxes do not fail, will not be very favorable.

Violence and tension have recently reached the capital, where supporters of “yes” and “no” to the new Magna Carta clashed in several episodes, and which on Thursday intensified with a beating on the president’s brother.

Simón Boric, an official of the University of Chile, was punched in the heart of Santiago, a few meters from the presidential palace of La Moneda.

The images of the men surrounding him and beating him were repeated over and over on local television. His attackers were arrested. This Friday Simón Boric was still hospitalized, albeit stable.

In the final stretch, uncertainty is in the air in Santiago and throughout the country.

Santiago, special correspondent