Chile will have a conservative constitution. This is how the voters who voted yesterday to elect the advisors who will draft the new Magna Carta, which should replace the text promoted by the Pinochet dictatorship, have decided. With this election, Chile distances itself from the progressive majority that drafted the first failed constitutional reform.
With 95.13% of the votes counted, Chile's Republican Party, led by far-right former presidential candidate José Antonio Kast, has obtained almost 35% of the vote and will control 22 of the 50 seats on the Constitutional Council. With the support of the traditional right, Chile Seguro, which has obtained 20% of the vote and 11 advisers, the Republicans will mark the direction of the new Constitution.
However, the left-wing coalition of President Gabriel Boric, which has fallen more than 5 points away from victory, with 29% of the vote, has only achieved 17 of the 50 councillors, with which it will be left without veto power. inside the organ.
"Today is the first day of a better future, a new beginning for Chile," said Kast, who lost to Boric in 2021, during a speech in Santiago; and he added: "Chile has defeated a failed government."
This is the latest in attempts to revise the country's dictatorship-era text after nearly 80% of Chileans will vote to draft a new constitution in 2020.
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, which arrived at the Moneda in March 2022. It was considered one of the most progressive constitutions in the world, but many voters found it too polarizing, among other things, because of the prominence it gave to the original communities -especially the Mapuche people.
Elected constitutional advisers will begin drafting the new constitutional text in June based on a draft already drafted by congressionally appointed constitutional experts in March. Subsequently, in December, voters will have to ratify or reject the new proposal.
Boric took office last March amid a wave of optimism about constitutional reform, but his approval ratings have since plummeted as a struggling economy and rising crime have become major drivers. voter concerns.
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 turn 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.
Following Kast's victory speech, Boric spoke from the La Moneda presidential palace in Santiago and called for unity and urged the opposition to learn from the previous failed attempt. “I want to invite the Republican Party, which won an unquestionable majority, not to make the same mistakes that we did,” Boric said. "This process cannot be one of vendettas, but of putting Chile first."
