The last one will be the charm: the adventure of the Chilean Constitution comes to an end

This Sunday closes the long chapter of the new Constitution for the chileans. Hailed as the solution to the country’s problems during the social outbreak of 2019, now only indifference and apathy accompany the voters who must return to the polls to approve or reject the second Magna Carta proposal, after the first was rejected last year categorically by 63% of the population.

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Although poll numbers – which in Chile have also been losing credibility – have been pointing to a victory for Contra, the difference between both options has been narrowing in recent weeks. However, few expect a surprise.

What is not surprising is the satiety that has taken over the population. Today will be the fifth election linked to the constitutional process and Chileans feel that on this well-trodden path they have achieved little, even more so if after four years of political discussions they end up where they started: with the same 1980 Constitution as the main legal text of the country.

“The first process – which spanned between 2020 and 2022 – did have a lot of interest from the people and this was palpable even among those who were not interested in politics before,” Chilean political scientist Christopher Martínez, professor of Sciences, comments to this newspaper. Policies of the University of Concepción. However, after the overwhelming rejection of the first text in September 2022, people exchanged hope for disappointment. “Since May of last year, when the new councilors had to be chosen for this second process, the perception is that people were not even angry, but rather that they knew nothing about the issue. There was complete indifference” he adds.

Throughout this process it was already clear that the change in the Constitution was not the immediate solution to the problems that overwhelm Chileans, such as inequality, lack of money and crime, but at least it should provide the regulatory framework so that certain Structural issues would allow changes urged by society.

However, expectations were set very high, while the performance of the political class was very low. Above all, because they have been changing sides depending on how the color of the proposals made changed. Thus, the right that never wanted Pinochet’s Constitution to be touched and endorsed the Rejection of the first text, is now campaigning in favor of the second project.

While President Gabriel Boric, who always advocated for a change in the Constitution, is now against it and, paradoxes of life, prefers that the text prepared under the dictatorship be maintained.

“After the initial plebiscite, in 2020, many of the messages that were given were that Chile was going to be refounded, that there would be more equality. Many expectations were placed that were not in line with what a Constitution represents, but then people saw that it was not going anywhere,” Martínez analyzes.

a pendulum

The path began in 2020, when an overwhelming majority of Chileans – in the midst of a pandemic and with voluntary suffrage – voted to change the 1980 Constitution promulgated by Augusto Pinochet, despite the fact that it had already gone through 70 amendments, the most important in the 2005 during the presidency of the socialist Ricardo Lagos. Then, the members of the Constitutional Convention that would be in charge of preparing the text were elected – also at the polls.

And here the knot began. The conventionalists, mostly on the left, got so caught up in the preparation of the articles that they ended up producing a text that did not even have the endorsement of the Chilean center left itself. For them it was a progressive, modern and advanced Constitution, but for ordinary Chileans it was too much. Considering Chile a plurinational state, allowing abortion, eliminating the Senate and approving the establishment of parallel justice for indigenous peoples were the most controversial articles and caused the population to reject the text by an overwhelming majority.

Thus, in September 2022, and with a mandatory vote, Chileans said No to the Constitution proposal prepared by the left. Immediately, the second process began and in May of this year the new members who would draft the new text were elected again (this time under a mixed modality, but which left the now Constitutional Council with 50 members, the majority from the right). ).

The project presented – the one that will be submitted to the polls today – falls into the same error of being dogmatic and pulled towards one of the ideological poles, and has been used more as a government program than a framework text that will govern the laws.

Although Chile is now considered a social and democratic State governed by law, the nomenclature has not been sufficient for the left, since the financial sector continues to be prioritized and there is no major progress regarding more equal access to health and education. .

“A great lesson that the first process left us was the need to find spaces for convergence, but what was done was to extreme positions and led us to an exclusive Constitution, very maximalist and that shows the little learning of the political elites,” he comments to CNN Chile academic Claudia Heiss, head of the Political Science department at the University of Chile.

The paradox

This process has not only been complex and exhausting, but above all very confusing. We already said that Boric’s government is going to end up celebrating the victory of Contra, with which he will breathe a sigh of relief if the Pinochet constitution is maintained, something that he always opposed.

In the same way, the right of José Antonio Kast and its allies have led the way in this second process and a victory would put them within striking distance of the next electoral campaign. Losing, however, would further expose their divisions. In fact, the most right wing of the Republicans has decided to vote Against and even leave the group.

“The group that has prepared this new text is trying to make this a plebiscite on the performance or evaluation of the government,” Martínez warns. Therefore, the approval or rejection of the new Constitution is, above all, a game where the balance of power between the political groups of the right and left is at stake.