Chile: second attempt to draft a new constitution could fail

Four years ago, Chili was plunged into the wave of the most serious protests since the end of the dictatorship and began a long discussion about the model of society it wanted to be. Today, the debate remains stuck and the second attempt to draft a new Constitution could, according to all polls, also fail.

More than 4,000 police officers will be deployed, mainly in Santiago, but authorities hope that the day will be “peaceful” and calls for massive marches have barely circulated.

Chileans are beginning to see with increasing distance the social outbreak, which put the country’s institutions on the ropes for several months and left around thirty dead, thousands injured, and accusations by international organizations against the security forces for violations of human rights.

The anniversary takes place two days before the opening of the XIX Pan American Games, the largest sporting event held in Chile since the 1962 World Cup, and with President Gabriel Boric on an official visit to China.

“The effects of the outbreak, which some try to pretend had not happened or erase it from history, are long-term and I think it is too early to be able to establish a complete analysis,” the president indicated on Tuesday from Beijing.

Unmet social demands

The constituent process was the solution agreed upon by politics to decompress the protests, but four years later the country maintains the Constitution of the dictatorship (1973-1990) and “the political system has not been able to resolve pressing discussions, such as security, pensions or health”explains Rodrigo Pérez de Arce, from the Institute for Society Studies (IES).

“The sum of the outbreak and the pandemic, together with this political inefficiency, have plunged us into immobility,” Add.

Octavio Avendaño, from the University of Chile, also believes that the social demands have not been successful and considers that a “wrong reading” of the protests was made, thinking that it could be solved. “with a change in the Constitution and a left-wing government.”

“The outbreak was a much more complex phenomenon. “We have realized that the demand for constitutional change is from the elites, including the left, not from the street.”he pointed out.

Pendulum voting

Since 2019, Chile has held seven elections, in which the electorate has behaved like a pendulum, swinging first to the left and then to the right.

Boric, the most leftist president since Salvador Allende, defeated the far-right José Antonio Kast in December 2021, but has not been able to carry out most of his reforms, such as tax and pension reforms, because he does not have a majority in Parliament.

The left also won the majority of seats in the convention that drafted the first proposal for a new Magna Carta, but suffered a resounding defeat in the plebiscite last September: 62% of Chileans rejected an avant-garde text on gender equality. , environment and indigenous peoples.

In the following constituent elections, the extreme right and the traditional right swept the scene and are currently leading the way in this second attempt to draft a new Fundamental Charter.

“We are moving between two extremes, seeking to summon the bulk of the Chilean population, which is located in the center,” said Jeanne Simon, from the University of Talca.

For Claudia Heiss, from the University of Chile, the redistribution of wealth and empowerment are not incompatible demands, but “transverse” to all voters.

“To think that social rights do not matter today or that in the past public safety did not matter is a mistake.””he added.

A new failure?

Polls have been warning for weeks that the second Magna Carta proposal could also fail in the plebiscite on December 17: The latest Cadem poll revealed this Sunday that only 28% would vote in favor, while 53% would vote against.

Of the 50 drafters of the new Constitution, 22 are from the far-right Republican Party and 11 from the traditional right, while the ruling party has 17.

The right has asserted its overwhelming majority and included in the text controversial articles that have been criticized from various sectors for assuming “setbacks” in matters of rights.

“This second process has had defects similar to the previous one. “There is an attempt to make public policies through constitutional change”Heiss laments.

Among the most controversial points are “the right to life of the unborn”, the immediate expulsion of irregular migrants or the tax exemption for the first home, a measure that benefits people with higher incomes.

A new failure, Pérez de Arce warns, would bring economic uncertainty and ““It would exacerbate the loss of legitimacy that citizens have in politics.”