"The next government has to recover the dignity of people and end privileges," Patricio Santamaría

On September 4, 1964, my dad, before voting for the presidential election, went to buy carafas and cut his arm, so he was disabled to issue his suffrage.He wanted to go the same and asked me to enter the secret chamber.I was a child, I was eight years old, and I had to mark the candidate he suggested me.

It was interesting: to enter the urn, that my dad would take me in his arms and to tell me to mark the vote ... it was certainly premonitory.Feel how a line with a graphite pencil was going to choose the next president of the Republic.

I was born in Valparaíso in 1955, in Cerro Alegre, at the German Hospital, in a middle -class family.My grandfather arrived from Spain in 1920, at age 14, with two other friends.Every Sunday came to look for us and we walked through the streets of Valparaíso.We went to the Prat spring, where he had arrived, decades ago, without shoes.

My family had a clothing business for men.As a young man I asked my grandfather to work there, especially in Christmas season.The store was called "the fixed price", but broke in dictatorship for imports from Asia.Pablo Neruda, President Jorge Alessandri, Eduardo Frei Montalva and even Salvador Allende.I remember that Alessandri was sold socks until almost his knees.

There was no talk of politics in my house, at all.My parents were independent.But entering university I joined university Christian democracy.It was a very convulsed moment in political terms.

I have had many mentors.One of them was Bernardo Leighton.I saw it unattainable.I've always got along with older people.He was a leader, who gave fields and land during the first agrarian reform.I even became your driver.I was with him until the end.I was especially marked by his way of being, his commitment.I was in the antipodes of today's society, with a culture of the disposable, with this prevailing individualism, with this ruthless compete.

I always had a vocation for electoral.I left in Christian democracy with the statements of the candidacies.He had interacted with Servel since 1989.

2012 I went to Uruguay.I worked on a project by President Pepe Mujica.While there I received a call.They told me they were considering me to be a advisor to Servel.I renounced Christian democracy and the exercise of my profession.I arrived happy, because it was my vocation.

There I remembered when I made the line in 1964 at Barros Luco school, in front of the Plaza O'Higgins.It was to culminate a process that had been part of a vocation.An aspiration was fulfilled.

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This Tuesday, January 25 was my last day at Servel.I immediately changed my biography of Twitter and put ‘citizen of the Republic’.I said goodbye and published a photo that I never thought I was going to generate such recognition.

It gives me some modesty to receive all the messages of congratulations.You do what you have to do.It is rich to recognize it, but sometimes I feel a feeling of injustice, because it is a team.

They recently asked me what my legacy was.But I don't believe in personal legacies.I laugh when people try to leave their name written in history, it is not so.After the Spanish Civil War they said ‘we need a leader’, but other people said ‘no, we need a people’.

The recipe for the success of Servel has to do with the human team.We managed to hire a young group that entered with special DNA.A mixture of people with a lot of experience was generated - which were since the restoration of the Servel for the 1988 plebiscite - with young professionals.

We also have good information technology and mechanism equipment that allows us to count the votes from the same voting premises.It is a committed work campus that knows the relevance of the role they are exercising, with transparency and integrity.

The most special election, first because it was a challenge and second because it constituted a mile.We had to do it in Pandemia.They were mega-comications that were made in two days.

That marked a milestone.Many innovations had to be done.In the end it turned out very well and showed that the Servel, with the FFAA, the delegates of the electoral boards and the proxies of the political parties could generate the conditions to implement the early vote.

The most complex moment, and regrets having to remember it, was when the Civil Registry told us that more than 7 million people had changed electoral home.It was impossible.In the end we realized that people, when they gave their residential domicile, were automatically established as an electoral domicile.It was a serious problem, but luckily it did not generate such a great effect.We had a little more than 6 thousand claims.

The Board of Directors will continue to function very well.The president and the Senate nominated people with experience, practice and who will be a contribution.It will be a good team.

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Now I am living with my mother, who is about to turn 95 and is a widow six months ago after a life of 70 years with my father, whom on August 5 she was taken a cursed cancer.So I want to take advantage.Few have the possibility of having their mother living, lucid, to read a book and comment and need your arm to walk.

My interest is to continue in the public service.Possibilities outside Chile have been opened, but I must stay here.I'm looking, seeing.After nine years there are things that I am not going to do.I will not build my lawyers, for example.

I will not return to Christian democracy either.I already fulfilled my task as a militant.There are no longer the Leighton, there are not the Velasco Castle, but there are men and women with vision.The situation that is lived gives me sadness (in La Falange).I am afraid that by human errors it is stagnant.But the ideas and positions of the young people of 1935 are more alive than ever.

The next government has not called me, but I wish you all success.I will not say what everyone says-which if it is doing well to the government will do well to Chile’-, since it is obvious.They have to make changes, you have to recover the dignity of people, recover justice, you have to end privileges.

Polarization I do not see it in common and currents, but in those who intend to defend privileges or give loose reins to violence.The vast majority have a good mood.I have that conviction.Those who close to exercise violence and to defend privileges have to disappear in some way.We have to convince them with dialogue.