Chile’s new government will be transitional, says president of Constituent

The president of the convention that drafts the new Constitution from Chile, the indigenous academic Elisa Loncón, affirmed that the new president, who is voted in first round this Sunday, “it will be transitional” and its work will be “to facilitate the constituent path.”

“Whoever is installed today will be a transitional government that in the future will have to see how it implements the new Constitution,” Loncón claimed from a voting station in the capital.

“It is very important who is elected today or who goes to the second round because they will have to continue governing in a constitutional way,” he said.

In 2020, Chile decided to leave behind its current constitution, inherited from the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990), and entrusted the task of drafting a new one to a joint assembly, with indigenous participation and a progressive tendency.

Implementing the rules of the new fundamental law, if approved in an exit plebiscite – predictably next year – will be one of the main challenges for the next president, who will succeed the conservative Sebastián Piñera in March 2022.

There are seven candidates in total and, according to the polls, none would prevail in the first round and the leftist deputy Gabriel Boric and the far-right José Antonio Kast would go to the ballot on December 19.

Also an alternative are the former minister and letter from the ruling party, Sebastián Sichel, and the Christian Democrat Yasna Provoste, and with less support, the progressive Marco Enríquez-Ominami; Franco Parisi, a controversial economist living in the United States, and Eduardo Artés, from the radical left.

“It doesn’t matter who wins. We need a president who dialogue and assumes the great responsibility of installing the demands for the fundamental rights of mother earth, women, and native nations, ”Loncón added.

The constituent process was opened as the political way to soften the social crisis that began in 2019, the most serious in three decades, which lasted for more than a year with massive protests for a more egalitarian, feminist and environmentalist socio-economic model.

Some experts point out that an eventual victory of the far-right Kast, who opposed in 2020 to change the Magna Carta, could stress the constituent process, something that the same candidate has rejected in various appearances.

More than 15 million people are called to the polls to elect the new president but also to partially renew Parliament, a crucial element for the governance of the country.

All the deputies (155) will be elected for a period of 4 years and 27 senators out of a total of 50 for a period of 8 years.

One of the big questions is participation, since since the vote is voluntary (2012), no election has exceeded 50% of the roll except the plebiscite for a new 2020 Constitution.