IT IS necessary to “use every day, every hour, to campaign,” emphasises Lautaro Carmona urging “the enrolment of 50,000, 60,000, 70,000 volunteers, who will defend the vote” on December 19 at all polling stations throughout the country.

He said that “all of us can demand a greater contribution in this presidential run-off campaign. We can distinguish where our contribution will be most effective. We have to take the campaign to not only the metropolitan region, but city by city, commune by commune, in each area.”

The campaigning ends on Thursday December 16 and the communist leader says that “the campaign to [knock on] ‘a million doors,’ is crucial.”

“We have to go out to inform, to convince and persuade. We have to turn to our closest circle of family, friends, neighbours and colleagues to convince them to participate and on election day to express a democratic position.

“A high percentage of the voters that participated in the plebiscite for a new constitution and were fundamental to that 80 per cent vote in favour of one, did not vote in the first round [of the presidential elections].”

“Half of the people entitled to vote did not vote. I believe that the majority are people who question the current neoliberal model, who suffer the consequences of that model and therefore have a habit of disregarding campaigns and elections — who feel that there are no real commitments to alter the situation they live in. Therefore they deserve our utmost attention, our recognition and our ability to convince them to support the programme of transformations.

“We have to actively call on people to go out and vote — and given the dilemma the country is in, to exercise their right to vote and stop the advance of the extreme right.

“Last week a representative of the Venezuelan ultra-right wing was in Chile, the president of the right-wing Popular Party of Spain has arrived, there are people like Pablo Longueira who resort to fake news and a leader of the lorry drivers [instrumental in the overthrow of Salvador Allende] said that we want to imitate Cuba and Venezuela.

“We must be aware that the minority who have immense privileges in this country are going to use all resources and resort to all political operations in order to prevent their position from being endangered,” Carmona stressed. “They are going to come out with last-minute campaigns, publicity stunts and fake news to protect their interests.”

It is evident in the press, online, in debates, in conversations, that whoever wins the election, the country then faces a complex period of uncertainty and confrontation. What do you think will happen after December 19, Carmona was asked.

“What will come will be complex in the context of the victory of the left-wing Apruebo Dignidad. But there will be an even more serious scenario for the country should the most reactionary group in national politics achieve victory instead.

“To be clear, the next government will have to assume the implementation of the plebiscite where the new constitution will be voted on. It will have to support the constituent process — and Jose Antonio Kast was and is about to reject all that, he is not in favour of moving towards a new constitution.

“In addition, the executive, together with parliament, will have to adapt legislation to this new Magna Carta. There will also be the discussion of projects that extend rights, the next government will have to defend the rights that have been achieved and there will be decrees and decisions, there will be an intense political and social agenda, so the future scenario will be very different with Boric or Kast.

“A far-right government will strain the country, it will generate a complicated situation of tensions, it will go against the advances in rights and legislative changes.”

In the parliamentary election, the Communist Party had a positive vote: it rose from nine to 12 representatives in the lower house, it will have two senators and it is the majority party within the Apruebo Dignidad alliance. Rumours abound that the CP is going to hegemonise, that it will be able to impose positions on Boric and the other parties. What is your view of the CP’s vote and parliamentary representation?

“The Communist Party has never ceased to be duly aware that profound transformations require correlations of forces at all levels, including the parliamentary level and that it presupposes an intelligent and arduous policy of alliances for strategic and tactical issues for the advancement of the popular struggle,” explains Carmona.

“The communists’ discourse will not be one that is at odds with the benefit of the great majorities,” he added.

“Whatever else they say about the electoral and parliamentary growth of the Communist Party, it is a deliberate negative response, a false interpretation that seeks to disqualify communists in order to impede healthy debate and a legitimate exchange of ideas. We have articulated policies that meet the expectations of the many for changes that will improve their lives and society as a whole.

“The anti-communist campaigns are intensifying while the policies pursued by the Communist Party are gaining better understanding and support among the people. The old response kicks in — instead of public debate they seek to disqualify the communists, to make arbitrary and false interpretations that do not correspond to reality, to use the media, to call individuals names and feed prejudice with a clear intention to produce a breach between communists and the population.

“Many of those who advocate communist policies are not communists and that is why these policies have become massive, because they have a strong democratising character of social justice, of commitment to the rights of the people and the duties of the state.

“The threat of policies that find understanding among the people leads to an unbridled anti-communist campaign by the right wing and those it represents, a manipulated, desperate campaign of intrigue and innuendo.”