This week in the Digital Debate we analyzed what was posted by Twitter users about the constituent process and the work of the Convention. The conversation on social media focused on the return of Rodrigo Rojas Vade’s controversy. There were also contingent national issues such as the constitutional indictment against President Sebastián Piñera and the vote regarding the fourth withdrawal of pension funds in Congress.

Summary
90,200 tweets
73,400 retweets (81%)
7,800 replies (9%)

Words

The words used the most on Twitter publications this week were “chile”, “renuncia” (resignation), “rojas”, “violencia” (violence), “derecha” (right wing), “piñera”, “Congreso”congreso” (Congress), “semana” (week), “marinovic” and “recurso” (appeal).

The words “renuncia” and “rojas” appeared in the debate about the constituent process due to the return of the controversy of the Constituent Rodrigo Rojas Vade. This happed after President Elisa Loncón responded on Tuesday, November 9, to an official letter issued by a group of Vamos por Chile Constituents requesting clarifications regarding Rojas’s situation. Rojas was involved in a controversy when t became publicly known in September that he had lied about his cancer diagnosis and then announced his desire to resign
from the Constituent Convention.

However he hasn’t been able to resign because there are no mechanisms for a voluntary resignation. This scenario, in which he remains a member of the Convention and receives his salary despite not attending or
participating in the activities for months, has prompted criticism on social networks. In addition, to a lesser extent, there were words associated with the constitutional Indictment against President Sebastián Piñera, who traveled to Spain during the territorial week of three Vamos por Chile Constituents, and with
the acceptance by the Valparaíso Court of Appeals of a protection appeal against the Constitutional Convention.

Hashtags

The most used hashtag on Twitter during the analyzed period was #Renunciarojasvade, due to the controversy mentioned above. Other Hashtags appearing in the analysis were
#cooperativacontigo and #renuncialoncon.

The hashtag #renuncialoncon remained active this week, but appeared less frequently than last week and there were no relevant tweets associated with it. Similarly, the hashtag #circoconstituyente remained, but
also appearing less frequently.

Lastly, there were also hashtags related to the vote in the Senate regarding the fourth withdrawal of pension funds (#cuartoretirodel10xcieto) and to the constitutional indictment against President Sebastián Piñera
(#acusaciónconstitucional).

Timeline

The highest frequency of tweets per hour was registered on Wednesday, September 10 at 5pm.

Tweets with the most retweets

During the analysis period, the tweets with the highest number of retweets came once again from the accounts of the Vamos por Chile Constituents Marcela Cubillos and Teresa Marinovic. Another tweet with a number of retweets was published by the account of the media outlet El Desconcierto.

Marcela Cubillos commented on President Elisa Loncón’s response to the official letter sent by Vamos por Chile Constituents to the council to report on the situation of Rodrigo Rojas Vade. The Constituent for district 11 posted the following to her account: “President @ElisaLoncon responded to our official letter and confirmed our suspicions: Rojas Vade did not present his resignation from the Convention. In other words, his statements announcing his resignation are just that: statements”, she wrote, using the hashtag #RenunciaRojasVade and sharing a photo of Elisa Loncón’s response.

On the other hand, the Constituent Teresa Marinovic celebrated in her networks the fact that the Valparaíso Court of Appeals accepted a protection appeal against the Constitutional Convention. The protection appeal sent in October requested to nullify the General Regulations as voted, as well as specific articles of the Rules of Participation regarding resolution referendums.

Lastly, one of the most shared posts on Twitter was published on Wednesday by El Desconcierto. The tweet is a link to a news article in their website informing that the Vamos por Chile Constituents Teresa Marinovic (district 10), Rocío Cantuarias (district 20) and Martín Arrau (district 19) traveled to the Spanish capital during the territorial week. Some media outlets reported that the purpose of the trip was to hold a meeting with leaders of the far-right Spanish party Vox.

Tweet 1: @ElisaLoncon responded to our official letter and confirmed our suspicions: Rojas Vade did not present his resignation from the Convention. In other words, his statements announcing his resignation are just that: statements #RenunciaRojasVade

Tweet 2: GREAT NEWS:
The Court has accepted the appeal against the Constitutional Convencion for the 2/3 quorum and resolution referendums | Especial | BioBioChile

Tweet 3: Marinovic, Cantuarias and Arrau traveled to Spain during the Constinuent territorial week

Analysis of networks and communities

This week, the blue community regained the influence it had lost during the previous week, mainly through the Twitter movement and posts made by Teresa Marinovic and Marcela Cubillos, who have a significant number of followers.
The most influential accounts this week were @Mister_Wolf_0, @FernandoLealA, and accounts of Marcela Cubillos, Teresa Marinovic, La Tercera, and El Desconcierto.

Methodological note

The survey was carried out through the Trendsmap application with the following query: (constituyente OR constituyentes OR constitucional OR constitución OR constitucion OR convencion OR convención OR convencionales OR convencional) OR ( #convencionconstituyente OR #convenciónconstituyente OR #convencionconstitucional OR #convenciónconstitucional OR #convencion OR #convención) -acusa* – excepc*

Through this survey, we sought to find Twitter conversations related to the work of the Constitutional Convention and the constituent process between Monday, November 8 at 12am and Friday, November 12 at 10am. To this end, conversations related to the constitutional indictment against President Sebastián Piñera and publications related to the expansion of the state of emergency in the southern macro-zone of the country were filtered out. We collected data on conversations produced by users located in Chile and in Spanish.

* The Digital Democracy Room is a project of FGV DAPP in Brazil in partnership with Animal Político, Bolivia Verifica, Chequeado, Confidencial, Espacio Público, Linterna Verde and Ojo Público. It’s goal is to monitor and analyze the digital conversations regarding the electoral context.

The analysis is available the website of Espacio Público here.