The chileans They once again rejected this Sunday to change the constitution, with a conservative tendency, which will keep the Magna Carta of the dictatorship in force. Augusto Pinochet.
With more than 99.5% of the votes counted, a 55.7% voted against the new proposal, a text that was more conservative morally and economically and that had garnered strong criticism for the risk it posed by limiting rights already achieved, such as those of women. He 44.2% of voters supported her.
Javier Macaya, leader of the Independent Democratic Union, was the first representative of the right to recognize that Chile will not have a new constitution and asked the government “make it coherent” and that he does not raise the constitutional issue again.
“There is a clear trend regarding the option against and obviously from the UDI, as we have always done, from a perspective of coherence and respect for democracy, we recognize this result“, the political leader spoke.
José Antonio Kast, the leader of the ultra-conservative Republican Party, after openly acknowledging his defeat, stressed that “There is nothing to celebrate” for no one, but thanks to his party, the country’s most urgent problems such as security and immigration were put on the table.
“This result gives President Boric himself a clear mandate: work, govern and take charge of the urgent problems of Chileans.”
And before the dozens of people who were listening to him—some with tears in their eyes—he sent a message for the future: “This party just has to grow.”
The spokesperson for the position “Against”, Carolina Leitao also spoke before the scrutiny concluded and stated that the result is a great shock for politics. “We want more agreements and fewer disputes” He pointed out about the pronouncement through the citizens’ ballot boxes.
The text was prepared by a constituent with an ultra-conservative majority after Chileans also rejected it at the polls last year, with the 62% of the votes, another much more progressive proposal drafted by different sectors of the left and supported by President Gabriel Boric.
Before the plebiscite, the president had assured that, whatever the result, this Sunday’s vote would close a constitutional process that began four years ago. There will be no third attempt.
Plaza Italia, which was the epicenter of the massive 2019 demonstrations, fell silent after the results were known. A discreet deployment of riot forces prevented the passage of fifty people who wanted to celebrate the defeat of the conservative proposal.
What the majority of Chileans want is just the opposite, to turn the page.
“The entire process itself has been a waste of resources for the State… a mockery,” lamented Johanna Anríquez, a 38-year-old civil servant, who voted against the proposal because she considered it “very extremist.”
“Let’s stay with what is and please dedicate yourself to working on security” which is what worries citizens the most, he asked politicians.
For Rodrigo Espinoza, political analyst at Diego Portales University, “The right-wing sectors, especially the Republican Party, chose to develop a more identity-based proposal, almost like a kind of government program. And that finally led to a constitutional process with a very low consensus, with a divisive proposal, which ultimately ends up causing rejection by citizens.”
Election day was held in the midst of widespread citizen boredom and a year after Chileans rejected with a 62% of the votes another project, then drafted by a constituent with a left-wing majority, which many described as one of the most progressive constitutional initiatives in the world.
“I prefer something bad to something terrible,” said former President Michelle Bachelet, who campaigned for the “Against” and the defense of women’s rights.
On the other hand, former president Sebastián Piñera, the conservative in whose government the social outbreak of 2019 took place that caused the start of this constitutional process, asked to close four years of “sacrifices” and “uncertainties” to have “a constitution approved in full democracy, that gives us the stability, the unity, the projection that Chile needs.”
Boric voted from his native Magallanes, in Chilean Patagonia.
Four years ago thousands of Chileans took to the streets to demand better pensions, health, and education and to end inequalities. These were unprecedented protests in the history of the South American country considered one of the most stable democracies in the region.
The new constitutional proposal states that Chile is a social and democratic State that “promotes the progressive development of social rights” through public and private institutions. Its detractors claim that, although there is freedom of choice in health, education or pensions, only those with purchasing power will be able to choose.
Feminist groups fear that the change in the wording of the new proposal to protect life “whose” is about to be born could pave the way to repeal abortion on the three grounds approved in 2017 (rape, risk to the mother’s life or non-viability of the fetus). In addition, they denounce setbacks in matters of social services or political participation.
Fernando Escudero, a 77-year-old retiree, also complained that the text declares water “a consumer good” and not a human right in a country with a severe water crisis. “I read the entire text, it is very bad, although the previous text was also very bad but it had redeemable things.”
The initiative also contains controversial elements on issues such as immigration by enshrining the expulsion of irregular immigrants. “as soon as possible”, conscientious objection by institutions, the right to strike or tax exemption from paying contributions for the first home. Likewise, those who may benefit from house arrest due to age or illness convicted of serious human rights violations.
For some families to vote at Chile’s National Stadium, one of the largest detention centers after the 1973 coup, “It’s a revenge” of democracy over dictatorship, said designer Valeria Salzmann, 44.
And for Jaime Fones, 87, a former marathon runner and former merchant marine who had to go into exile after the coup, the memories of when he trained here are mixed with those of “the savage slaughter they did” the military, said from his wheelchair, confident that the new proposal will not be approved.
César Campos, a 70-year-old taxi driver, who expected the victory of the vote, thinks very differently. “In favor” because with the left “there is no investment, there is no productivity, as has been seen in Argentina” and the new Constitution guarantees it. “With the right the country walks”he sentenced.
Claudio Morales, a 28-year-old mechanic who said he had voted in the past for the ultra-conservative Revolutionary Party and supported some measures such as immigration control, pointed out that this time he did not follow the line of that group. He rejected the two constitutional proposals because, in his opinion, “Chile’s laws are not bad, the problem is taking advantage of what we have and applying them.”
Whether the result is imposed or not, the ruling party will not have much to celebrate since citizens remain very critical of the growing insecurity, which has doubled although Chile continues to be at the bottom in crime in the region, and with linked corruption cases, the most recent, to one of the parties in the ruling coalition.
Source: Gestion
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