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In your letter of resignation to the PS vice-presidency, you affirm that you have felt excluded from the decisions of the table. Why do you think that the board of directors led by Álvaro Elizalde has had this spirit towards you?
Look, actually, more than excluded from the decisions, actually I have been worried about not doing any specific task. I started from the base, when I was offered to run on a list as vice president of the party; Well, the vice president of the party has some activities to carry out, some things he does on behalf of his party, and the truth is that this has not happened in my case. I’m not going to criticize anyone for that, I’m not talking about Álvaro Elizalde, or anything. It is what has not happened. So, when there are meetings with all kinds of groups, sectors, etc. and some members of the table go and I think that only once I have been raised about the possibility of attending one of those meetings, one feels a little that they are not fulfilling a function . But that is not in any case the main reason for the resignation.
And what is it then?
The truth is that I began to discuss this with President Elizalde a few months ago, which I think was when we published together a letter about a national agreement with the then deputy Mario Desbordes (RN). And this received a lot of criticism from party people: why would a party vice president do this? And I actually made some sense of those people, because of course, they must think that I was representing the party with that and I was not doing it. So every time I do something that people don’t like, they will say that since I’m vice president, I can’t say that. It also happened to me when I voted in favor of the anti-barricade law. So I want to have more freedom to have an opinion. That’s the main. The other thing, of course, is that I am not doing anything crucial, I am not directing any fundamental commission or any very central campaign. Except for attending board or political committee meetings when I can, there is not much activity that I have on behalf of the party.
But what was the fact that he resented so that he finally made this resignation now?
I would say that I began to think this when it was passed to the Disciplinary Court for not having been present to vote for the removal of the mayor of Santiago. He had good reasons not to be there, he had a prior engagement. But the criticism was not for not being there, it was for not being there to vote in favor. And that seemed to me to be wrong. I would say that that was a long time ago, in prehistory, that was in March. Later there was the anti-barricade law, the whole issue of Overflows and several other things. Then one suddenly says, I want to have the possibility … well, I am in politics, saying that I am from the center-left is probably what everyone is saying today and if you say you are a social democrat, the truth is that it comes out … It seems that everyone wants to be a social democrat. I have been for a long time. And the truth is that sometimes I don’t feel comfortable with some decisions and declarations that are made and I would like to have the possibility to say my own thing.
And has Elizalde already answered the letter?
No, I have not been acknowledged or received. I sent it on Saturday and so far Tuesday at noon, at 2:00 p.m. it has not acknowledged receipt.
What is your opinion about Elizalde’s leadership in the party?
No, I have already said that I will not make statements that could hinder and create difficulties in a (constituent) plebiscite period, so I am not going to go in now to criticize the party president.
You recently said that you did not feel comfortable with some decisions, has it crossed your mind to resign from the PS?
No, never, never, not even if they offered me the Presidency of the Republic in exchange for leaving the PS, I’m going to do it. I have been a member of the party since 85, that is, I have more years of militancy than many who proclaim themselves historical socialists.
What did you think of the presidential debate within the PS? This position of Elizalde as support for Senator Carlos Montes, ensuring over the weekend that “the great virtue of Carlos Montes is that he generates transversal respect in the opposition.”
“I once lived this. This did not influence much, but I have lived it. When I had recently returned to Chile and was in the agency, on the subject of Bolivia, I was informed that there was going to be an open campaign for the presidential primary and for that I left to enter politics again. And of course, later there was not even that, because the president of the party decided otherwise. So now I see that the president of the party has also decided something else, by the way I don’t like it, but I repeat this is not a cause either.
But looking at a future application …
If we are talking about the cause of my resignation, those are not. If you ask me what I think about the party president starting to promote a candidacy, it doesn’t seem right to me.
Sure, but do you think that this table could give guarantees under this scenario to all the presidential cards of the party?
I think that with what has happened in recent days one would think not. But I will wait for what happens, naturally. According to Álvaro Elizalde, he talked about me, Montes and Isabel Allende and only Montes published him, according to him. I don’t know if it will be like this or not.
Do you feel that if you compete for a presidential candidacy, the party has already sided with Montes?
No, I still don’t have a decision on whether to compete or not to compete, so I don’t think anything has been decided. I believe that the decision of the table I attended, of the Political Commission, before the proposal of a comrade that we have a candidate to lead us in the plebiscite, the clear decision there or the majority was clearly because not. Therefore I am left with that, with the decision that we did not raise presidential candidacies until after the plebiscite. Now, if someone starts picking them up, it’s his thing, not mine.
You said that you have not yet defined whether you will be a candidate for the Presidency, when would be the maximum date for you to take that definition?
I would say at the end of the year, before the end of the Chilean year that ends on January 31st.
Before finalizing the resignation of the vice presidency of the party, did you talk with any leader?
With Álvaro Elizalde. I personally spoke with him a couple of weeks ago, he told me we would talk again and we did not talk again. So I waited a reasonable period of two or three weeks and sent my letter to him and to the general secretary (Andrés Santander).
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