Burning the Metro more powerful than voting?
What happens in Chile is somewhat amazing. Today, three years ago, young activists took it to the streets in a rampage that shock the country, and the continent. Few expected this could happen in the country with the highest quality of institutions in the region. But it did happen, and it moved the government (then Piñera), to open a constitutional process of reform.
Many voters did not bother to go to the polls and a Constitutional Convention was elected with all sorts of nuts and weird delegates. Reform they did and the outcome we all know. The draft, if approved, would have sent Chile down the drain, or down the Institutional Quality Index that now leads in Latin America.
But then, they made sense, and the draft was rejected in a massive plebiscite and with a large margin. Double the number of electors voted this time. Chile was back from the brink. Or is it?
In this third anniversary of the protests, El Mercurio reports a poll showing that almost 60% of Chilean people think the 18-O movements had bad consequences for Chile. Further, 83% disagree with the idea that the country has moved forward to attend the demands that gave birth to the demonstrations.
Today, Boric will be speaking to Chileans, but what I feel is that the left is moving as if nothing much happened at the plebiscite, and many keep on their dream of an institutional overhaul despite de 62% of votes against it.
It looks as if the impulse of several thousands rallying in the streets and burning the metro is more powerful than 7 million voters. Is it?