2023-05-08 13:45:03
The Republican Party was the clear winner of this Sunday’s elections to the Constitutional Council of Chile.
With more than 99% of the votes counted, the formation of José Antonio Kast -the candidate of the radical right who lost the 2021 presidential elections against the current leader of the country Gabriel Boric-, monopolized more than 35% of the votesaccording to data from the Chilean Electoral Service (Servel).
With that, will provide 22 of the 51 directors (50 representatives of the political parties and one of the indigenous peoples) who will have the task of drafting a new Constitution to replace the current one, which was drafted in 1980 under the military regime of Augusto Pinochet.
Boric’s left-wing coalition, Unity for Chile, won 28% of the votes and 17 directorsless than the 21 that would have given him the right to veto in the process of drafting the Magna Carta.
The right grouping Chile Safe obtained 21.5% of the ballots, securing the remaining 11 directors, while the alliances All for Chile -centre-left- and the People’s Party They were unrepresented.
A key victory
The right-wing and center-right coalitions (Republican Party and Chile Seguro) add 33 directors, which gives them broad autonomy to draft the new proposal of Great Charter which will be submitted to a citizen plebiscite on December 17.
In addition, the victory of the ultra-right party is considered especially symbolic, at a time when the popularity of the Boric government is at a low point.
The day also left a large number of invalid and blank votes, which exceeded 2.2 million, more than one 21% of the total, something unprecedented in the country.
According to political analysts, this vote has to do with Chileans’ disinterest in constitutional change, at a time when this nation’s main concern has to do with security and the economy.
It is also read as a “punishment vote” towards the political class.
And it is that the process to change the Magna Carta in Chile has not been easy. This will be, in fact, the second attempt after in September of last year voters discardan a first proposal with 62% voting against.
That constitutional text had been drafted by a committee dominated by representatives of the left and independents.
“The lack of interest is explained by the effect generated by the previous constituent process, given that it suffered enormous discredit. It caused a sharp drop in sectors that had expectations, which bet on the idea of constitutional change,” Octavio Avendaño, doctor of political science and academic at the University of Chile, explains to BBC Mundo.
The reactions
Kast appeared in Santiago de Chile before his supporters, to whom he dedicated the “triumph” of his party.
He assured that this Sunday’s victory is “a strong and clear sign of the course that (Chileans) want for our country.”
Despite this, he remarked that “there is nothing to celebrate, because Chile is not well” and alluded to economic and security problems that affect the country.
Boric, for his part, acknowledged the defeat that, he assured, “was marked by the security and migration crisis that have penetrated deeply into the spirit of our compatriots”.
The president invited the right-wing parties to “achieve great agreements for our homeland.”
The words of the Chilean president reflect one of the concerns generated by the broad victory of the right in these elections: that they can draft the proposal without reaching broad consensus (and without the contribution of the left).
“One of the fears is that the right wing will whet their appetite and see an opportunity to constitutionalize things that are not in the Constitution today and that would further deepen the current model of the subsidiary State,” he explained to BBC Mundo. Elizabeth Castillopolitical scientist and researcher at the Center for the Study of Conflict and Social Cohesion (COES).
“If the right prevails, it can approve complex things to swallow from the left and that will undoubtedly lead to failure in this process again,” he adds.
The foregoing becomes even more relevant if one considers that the Republican Party, winner of these elections, has repeatedly said that Chile does not need a new Magna Carta.
“The Republican Party has been opposed from the beginning to changing the Constitution. José Antonio Kast was always on the Rejection side. They have been defenders of this Constitution because the model suits them, they defend the subsidiary State”, affirms Isabel Castillo.
This could “entrap” the constitutional process.
“The fear is that it will remain as it is, with the current Constitution, without a new text being approved. That the discussion will get bogged down,” says Octavio Avendaño.
The new Constituent Council
Another thing that caught the attention of the election results was the failure of the Todo por Chile list, which brings together the center-left.
Without any elected advisor, this sector – which was part of the Coalition that governed between 1990 and 2010 – will not have the possibility of influencing the proposals, which means a hard blow.
The same fate befell the People’s Party, a conglomerate that broke into 2021 when its leader, Franco Parisi, came in third place in the first presidential round (with almost 13% of the vote). The party, which bases its success on a critical discourse against the traditional, anti-elite, anti-privilege political class, hoped to have at least 5 representatives in the assembly.
As established, the Council elected this Sunday has 50 members with an equal distribution: 25 men and 25 womenin addition to the indigenous representative.
The 50 members must draft the Magna Carta proposal on a preliminary draft prepared by a commission of experts, a group of 24 professionals appointed by the political parties, who are already working on a text that must be delivered on June 7, when according to the assembly.
The vote of this sunday Was mandatory and not exercising it could lead to penalties of up to US$226.
More than 100,000 Chileans presented justifications for not going to the polls -for example, being far from the voting center- and avoiding being fined, according to the Carabineros.
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