2023-12-18 09:34:06
The “against” won with nearly 56% of the votes. The Chileans rejected on Sunday December 18, for the second time in just over a year, a draft new Constitution, according to the authorities. More than 15 million voters were asked to vote for or against this new Basic Law, which has a very conservative tone. Its rejection means that the current Constitution, dating from the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990), will remain in force.
The text submitted to the vote this Sunday was written and defended by the Chilean extreme right, defender of the legacy of the Chilean dictator. This conservative proposal for a Constitution was no more successful than the first progressive version, rejected in September 2022 and supported by the young left-wing president Gabriel Boric.
The rest after the ad
The latter, the youngest leader in the history of Chile, aged 37, closed the door to any new attempt to reform the Constitution. “Under this mandate, the constitutional process is closed. There are other emergencies »he said, in a speech at the presidential palace in La Moneda.
The left-wing president added that the country “will continue with the current Constitution, because after two constitutional proposals submitted to a referendum, none has succeeded in representing or uniting Chile in its beautiful diversity”. If he had defended the first proposal for the Basic Law, he opted for neutrality on the second.
Several setbacks for Boric
The Pinochet-era Constitution is seen as an obstacle to any fundamental social reform. Its revision was made to satisfy the 2019 social movement against inequalities which left around thirty dead. A year later, 80% of Chileans approved the drafting of a new Constitution.
Fifty years after the coup d’état of September 11, 1973, Chileans cannot turn the page on Pinochet
Reform enthusiasm has been dampened by the pandemic, inflation and a growing sense of insecurity and weariness. President Boric “will take advantage of this moment to promote stalled reforms, mainly tax and pension reforms”estimated Rodrigo Espinoza, director of the school of public administration at the Diego-Portales University located in Santiago.
The rest after the ad
In Chile, the cautious audacity of the left
The Chilean head of state has suffered several setbacks since the start of the constitutional process. First with the rejection of the first progressive version of the text, and then when the ultraconservative Republican Party came first in the May 2023 ballot to elect the Constitutional Council responsible for drafting the new Basic Law. The Chilean far right has won over voters with its uncompromising discourse against insecurity, which it mainly associates with Venezuelan immigration.
A failure for the Chilean far right
The conservative opposition presented Sunday’s vote as a consultation on President Boric, who rode a wave of discontent to be elected at the end of 2021 but whose popularity rating is now declining. The proposal for a new Constitution carried by the Republican Party intended to strengthen the conservative nature of the current text, particularly on issues such as public security and abortion.
The practice was completely banned in Chile until 2017 when a law authorized it but only in cases of risk to the life of the mother, rape or fetus declared non-viable. The current Constitution “protect the life of the unborn”but the text defended by the conservatives, by making the embryo a person, would thus make it more difficult to justify an abortion.
“Chileans are not patient”: Gabriel Boric, the disappointed hope of the Chilean left
“We failed to convince Chileans that this Constitution was better than the current one and that it was the surest way to end political, economic and social uncertainty”lamented José Antonio Kast, head of the Republican Party and former presidential candidate defeated by Gabriel Boric in December 2021.
The rest after the ad
“There is nothing to celebrate. And not only can we not celebrate, but the government and the left cannot rejoice either because the damage that Chile has suffered over the last four years is immense and several decades will be needed to repair it.he added.
For Stéphanie Alenda, analyst at the Faculty of Education and Social Sciences at Andrés-Bello University, “the big loser is the political class as a whole […] with four years of constitutional debate and two failed attempts at consensus on a text”.
#Chile #rejects #time #draft #Constitution