Navia nails it

Here is Patricio Navia's comment on last week's shameful takeover of the ex Congress building in Santiago, which houses parliamentarians' offices and committee rooms.

Money quote:

... la falta de democracia se corrige con reformas democráticas, no con interrupciones del proceso legislativo.

What is particularly sad is that many in the Concertación were temped to support the demonstrators, confusing populism with popular will, and demonstration with democracy. Over the following days they backtracked, but one can't help but feel that the Concertación has unlearned the lessons learned so painfully after 1973: that democracy, and democratic institutions, matter.

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