Chile rejected this Sunday for an overwhelming 61.8% of the votes for the proposal for a new Constitution and decided to maintain the current text, inherited from the dictatorship, with 99.9% of the votes counted.
“Today there are no winners or losers. There are Chileans who have to meet again,” said the leader of the “Rejection” campaign, Claudio Salinas. The option of accepting the new Magna Carta, which enshrined a new range of social rights, it is supported by only 38.1% of voters.
As soon as the trend was confirmed at the polls, dozens of people began to celebrate it, especially in the wealthy neighborhoods of the capitalwhere the rejection won by more than 10 points difference.
A gap similar to the one that occurred in Valparaíso, which together with the metropolitan region of Santiago de Chile and Viña del Mar nearly half of the more than 15 million people called to the polls add up.
In a first analysis of the results, the president of the Independent Democratic Union (UDI), a conservative force, Javier Macaya, assured the press that “this absolutely surpassed the traditional scenario of the right against the left. That is the reason why common sense has triumphed today.”
Along the same lines, the senator of the Socialist party in the southern region of Los Lagos, Fidel Espinoza, harshly criticized the conventionalists and summoned them to take responsibility for what he called a “debacle.” “Let the conventional gentlemen take responsibility for this debacle. They drafted a constitution out of hatred and their frustrations”he indicated.
“They wanted to go for everything and left us with nothing, they will go down in history. We told it to Gabriel Boric himself months ago. They ignored us,” he added. In full scrutiny, the local press revealed that the president of Chile, Gabriel Boric, has summoned the leaders of all political parties to a meeting this Monday at the Palacio de La Moneda to analyze the results.
The rejection of the new Constitution would keep the current one in force, written in 1980 during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990) and partially reformed in democracy.
Boric commits to a new constituent process
After voting this morning in his hometown of Punta Arenas, Boric, one of the promoters of the new Constitution, guaranteed that his will and “action regardless of the result, will be to call for a broad national unity of all sectorsfrom all social organizations, from civil society, from political parties, we want to hear all the voices in order to continue with this process”.
Boric has promised this morning to promote a constituent process with Congress and social forces and to work to speed it up. “I promise to do everything on my part to build, together with Congress and civil society, a new constituent itinerary (…) Chilean men and women have demanded a new opportunity to meet and we must rise to the occasion in this called”, he underlined.
The president stressed “two messages” that Chileans have delivered this Sunday: on the one hand, that Chile “loves and values its democracy” and, on the other, that “it was not satisfied with the proposed Constitution.” Given this decision, Boric confirmed that he summoned the presidents of Congress and representatives of civil society this Monday in La Moneda to advance on the new path.
“We will carry out a round of talks to collect the proposals of the different sectors that have committed themselves to the country with establishing a new Constituent Process,” he said.
The president indicated that he has already spoken with some of the actors and announced that, “beyond the legitimate differences, I know that the desire for dialogue and meeting prevails.” In an intervention on a national network, he also called on all citizens “to tackle the construction of the future together and united.”
“When we act in unity is when we bring out the best in ourselves,” he said. During his intervention, Boric made reference to the road to this plebiscite: “Let’s not forget why we got here, that malaise is still latent and we cannot ignore it.” The president highlighted this electoral process as the one that has had the largest turnout at the polls in the entire history of the country. By an overwhelming 61.8% compared to 38.1%, Chileans rejected this Sunday the proposal for a new Constitution prepared by a democratically elected convention after the wave of protests in 2019. The “Rejection” of the new text was imposed in the 16 regions of the country, including the Metropolitan -which houses the capital- and the coastal Valparaíso, where he won against all odds with 55.4 and 57.6%, respectively. The new text declared Chile a social State of law -as opposed to the secondary role of the current Constitution- and is one of the most avant-garde in the world in terms of gender equality and nature protection.
Source: Lasexta
Mario Twitchell is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his insightful and thought-provoking writing on a wide range of topics including general and opinion. He currently works as a writer at 247 news agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
