Chile faces another step this Sunday in its process of institutional refounding with the holding of a new referendum to elect a constituent assembly, in charge of drafting the long-awaited Magna Carta that must replace the text promoted by the Pinochet dictatorship.
It will be the second constituent in two years, after the failure of the first attempt. A first draft of a fundamental text was rejected in a referendum in September last year by 62% of Chileans, which plunged the country even further into disenchantment and caused the first major crisis of confidence in the hopeful left-wing government of President Gabriel Boric, who arrived at La Moneda in March 2022.
The rejection was interpreted as a punishment for the anarchic constitutional process initiated after the social outbreak of 2019 that led to a joint, progressive Constitutional Convention with broad representation of the original peoples, but plagued by outsiders and independent anti-system.
During a year of work, several scandals affected some conventional members and undermined the prestige of the organ. Finally, the proposed text ended up seeming too radical for the taste of the majority of Chileans, who during the social revolt had demanded in the streets a profound transformation of the neoliberal socioeconomic model bequeathed by the dictatorship.
The rejected text declared, in its first article, that Chile would be a "social and democratic State of law", which is not in question in this second attempt either. However, opinion studies identified that one of the main reasons for rejection was that the first text also established that the State would be “plurinational, intercultural and ecological”. The Chilean people reacted against the greater prominence of the original communities –especially the Mapuche people, who, through violent groups, have been causing tension in their territory, Araucanía, for years– and the direct consequence has been that in one of the 12 red lines established to write the second constitutional project insists that "the State of Chile is unitary."
"The Constitution recognizes indigenous peoples as part of the Chilean nation, which is one and indivisible," says the fourth of those red lines, the 12 "constitutional bases" approved last December by the parties with parliamentary representation, in an agreement that set the roadmap for a process that today involves electing the 50 members of the Constitutional Council, a figure substantially lower than the 155 members of the previous failed constituent assembly.
This council is complemented by two more bodies, the Expert Commission –which is already drafting a draft– and the Admissibility Technical Committee –which will monitor compliance with the red lines–, elected by Parliament and made up of experts and jurists. In this way, the parties ensure control of the new Constitution, which pleases the establishment and the post-Pinochetista right, which, however, no longer discusses as before the social outbreak the need for a new Magna Carta and the inclusion in it of social rights.
In fact, although in the first constituent the right was relegated to an irrelevant role by failing to obtain the third of the seats that would have allowed it to block articles, now the expectation is totally opposite, since it is the left that could have problems reaching to that third.
Today voting is compulsory and Chileans seem to have forgotten about social demands. The polls indicate that they have lost interest in the constituent process to start demanding order and security, given the alarming increase in violent crimes, amplified by the main media.
Two years ago the surprise of the constituent was the independents, but now the Council will basically be made up of members of the five coalitions that are running – three from the right and two from the left, one of which includes the majority of the government parties. – and that bring together political formations.
On this occasion, Boric –with an approval rating of only 26%– and the Government have decided to stay out of the campaign to avoid being peppered with results that could show a shift to the right in Chilean society, which would make it more difficult for the young president to carry out his ambitious progressive agenda to implement a welfare state in Chile.
