Chileans went to the polls yesterday, in a mandatory plebiscite, to decide on the second attempt in four years to change the Constitution. If fifteen months ago they overwhelmingly rejected a left-wing text, this time the proposal bears the stamp of the most radical right.
Chile was writing what everything indicates will be the last chapter of a tortuous process that began with the social eruption of 2019. That wave of unprecedented protests, which ended with thirty deaths and thousands of injuries, put against the ropes of the then conservative government of Sebastián Piñera and led to a broad political pact to write a new Magna Carta to replace the current one, inherited from the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, a historic demand of the progressive sectors.
The paradox of yesterday’s vote is that those who asked for yes are precisely those who never saw the need to suddenly close the dictatorship, while those who have fought the most for a new Constitution now defend staying with the existing one , since they consider that the proposed text represents a regression both in the social sphere – abortion, education, health… – and in the economic sphere.
“I never thought I would defend Pinochet’s Constitution”, declared a few months ago a left-wing councillor, member of the body that drafted the text, in which the far-right has a majority.
Chile’s president, the progressive Gabriel Boric, did not openly campaign against it because of his position, although his position is not lost on anyone. The president wanted to send a message of the future, and assured that the plebiscite “strengthens” democracy and that, “regardless of which option wins”, his government will focus on the “priorities of the people”.
“Beyond any result, it strengthens our democracy. Chile has shown a strength that we must not take for granted, it has shown that the problems we have in society are channeled institutionally and solved in a peaceful way and trusting the people”, declared Boric after voting in his Born in Punta Arenas. “It’s not like that everywhere”, he added.
For his part, the leader of the far-right Republican Party, José Antonio Kast, whose party played a major role in drafting the text, urged Chileans to vote en masse. “We hope that today there will be many people who will cast their vote and who will prioritize peace, sanity, freedom, and that common sense will win”, said Kast, who lost the presidential election against Boric in 2021.
The path taken in the four years since the political forces agreed to promote a new Constitution has not been straight. In May 2021, Chileans voted and put the left, with a strong weight of the identitarian and radical wing, at the wheel of the Constitutional Convention in charge of drafting it. In December the young Boric was elected president with the promise of political renewal. Nine months later, in September 2022, 62% of voters rejected the constitutional proposal, focused on social, indigenous, environmental and gender rights. It was a hard blow for the Government. The headwind was confirmed in May 2023, when Chileans returned to the polls to elect the new Constitutional Council: 22 of the 50 elected members were from the Republic Party.
Boric recently assured that this second consultation would be the last attempt to reform the Constitution. Citizens have followed the process with increasing disinterest – there is talk of “constitutional fatigue” – while issues such as security cause much more concern, according to surveys.
The current Constitution was drawn up during the dictatorship, but since 1989, with the beginning of the transition, it has been amended about 70 times. The most important reforms were in 2005, during the government of the socialist Ricardo Lagos.