This Sunday, Chile faces another step in the process of institutional refoundation with the celebration of a new referendum to elect a constituent assembly, in charge of drafting the long-awaited Magna Carta that must replace the text promoted in 1980 by the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet.
It will be the second constituent in just two years, after the failure of the first attempt. A first draft of the fundamental text was rejected in a referendum in September by 62% of Chileans, plunging the country further into disenchantment and causing the first major crisis of confidence in the president's hopeful left-wing government Gabriel Boric, who arrived at La Moneda in March 2022.
The rejection was interpreted as a punishment for the anarchic constituent process initiated after the social outburst of 2019 that led to an equal, progressive Constitutional Convention with a broad representation of the original peoples, but filled with anti-system outsiders and independents.
During a year of work, several scandals affected some conventionals and undermined the prestige of the organ. Finally, the proposed text ended up looking 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 socio-economic model inherited by the dictatorship (1973-1990).
The rejected text declared, in the first article, that Chile would be a "social and democratic state governed by the rule of law", which is also not in question in this second attempt. However, opinion studies identified that one of the main reasons for the rejection was that the first text also established that the State would be "plurinational, intercultural and ecological". Chile was reacting against the ever-increasing prominence of the original communities - especially the Mapuche people, who have been causing tension in their natural territory, La Araucanía, through violent groups for years - and the direct consequence has been that in one of the 12 red lines fixed to draft the second constitutional project it is insisted 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 these red lines, the 12 "constitutional bases" approved in December by the parties with parliamentary representation, in an agreement that it set the road map for a process that takes place today to elect 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 other bodies, the Expert Commission - which is already drafting a draft - and the Technical Admissibility Committee - which will ensure that the aforementioned red lines are met - chosen by Parliament and made up of experts and lawyers. In this way, the parties ensure control of the new Constitution, which satisfies the establishment and the post-Pinochetist right who, however, no longer discuss the need for a new Charter as before the social outbreak Magna and social rights inclusion.
In fact, although in the first constituent the right was relegated to an irrelevant role because it did not get a third of the seats that would have allowed it to block articles, now the expectation is radically opposite, since it is the left who might have trouble getting to that third part.
Today voting is compulsory and Chileans seem to have forgotten about social demands. Polls indicate that they have lost interest in the constituent process to demand order and security due to the alarming increase in violent crimes, amplified by the main media.
Two years ago the independents came as a surprise to the constituents, but now the Constitutional Council will basically be made up of members of the five coalitions running for it - three from the right and two from the left, one of which includes the majority of Government parties – and which group the political formations.
This time, Boric - with an approval of only 26% - and the Government have decided to stay out of the campaign to avoid being splashed by results that could evidence a turn to the right in Chilean society, which would more difficult for the young president to push forward the ambitious progressive agenda to implement a welfare state in Chile.
