Kingdom of Chile? Not amused, a party condemns its Senate candidate who dared suggest this

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – “We should be the Kingdom of Chile; that would give us an identity,” said candidate Ana Vergara San Martin, who is running for senator for the Ñuble region.

The Equality Party, however, has confirmed its intention to drop the party’s support for Vergara, after she said Chile should become “a monarchy.”

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Vergara’s definition came in an interview with Radio El Sembrador. She referred to the discussion in the Constitutional Convention on whether or not the term “Republic of Chile” should be considered in the Rules Committee, a question that currently moves Chile and causes controversy.

And the candidate stomped right into this powder keg with her ‘Kingdom of Chile’ idea.

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In this context, the candidate for a seat in the upper house stated, “I think we should be a monarchy, where we have a monarch in charge of the armed forces and education, for example.”

“We should be the Kingdom of Chile, that would give us an identity (…) the Spanish came, and the Mapuche tribe and other indigenous people were conquered, but at some point, Bernardo O’Higgins freed us from the Spanish, but we were left without an identity, and we should take it back.”

In response, the Equality Party distanced itself from her remarks, calling them “politically ridiculous.”

“We share the shame felt by our activists at the political ridicule to which this independent candidacy exposes us. We are currently examining the legal means to end it. We will announce the current decree any moment,” it said on Twitter.

“They will say, ‘you should do a background check on the candidates.’ That’s true. And that’s what we’re doing. Because we also trust the social movements that run as independents in our pact, and that is the case,” they added.

In this sense, they said that “fortunately, we have not had any problems here and we have been able to register CORES (regional councils) throughout the country,” specifying that “we also do not let pass any cases of corruption in our candidacies. A person convicted in such a case would never be considered for one of our lists.”

Funny, crazy, provocative, and somewhat humorless, yes – but not a candidate of the Equality Party.