An international look at the plebiscite in Chile

“I cannot imagine another country with such a strong social majority wanting to change the social and political contract. There is a clear deficit of the State with regard to claims of society and that is not the fault of Piñera alone, but of Chilean democracy and that is what the constituent convention has to try to resolve.

“An arduous and complicated process is coming, because there are too many expectations. I am referring both to expectations that overestimate the role of the new Constitution and excessive expectations about the damage capacity that the Constitution can do to the Chilean economy and society ”.

“Reading this process in the region is to reinforce the story that a new social pact must be developed. Circumstances require states with greater capacity to address health, education and pension problems. The Chilean experience shows that the role of a dynamic private sector is fundamental, but so is having effective public policies from the government. The Chilean constituent could feed and influence other efforts in Latin America to create a more egalitarian and just society ”.

“Of all the political processes in the region, the Chilean constituency is perhaps the most positive today. Just as they invented a plebiscite 30 years ago that managed to force a dictator out of power, Chileans have once again demonstrated that they are capable of changing their destiny with democratic instruments and, in fact, that, by a wide margin, they are a people of meat and democratic bone. In this era of democratic fragility everywhere, it is a very great virtue ”.