2023-05-09 06:30:00
The dominance of Chile’s conservative ultra-right in the constituent assembly, which defeated President Gabriel Boric at the polls this Sunday, is a bell for the Latin American left –such as the one embodied by Gustavo Petro in Colombia– who felt that the social unrest in the that several of them rose to power would keep them strengthened during their mandates.
In fact, what happened in Chile is a 180 degree turn in just a year and a half, because when Boric won the chair of the Palacio de La Moneda -in the 2021 presidential elections-, campaigning with the social protest that was mobilized over 24 months in various cities, he defeated former congressman José Antonio Kast by close to one million votes. And that last one was the coconut on the right.
But with the final results of the voting this Sunday, which reconfigured the table of those who will write the new Constitution of Chile -to replace the one left by the dictator Augusto Pinochet-, the winner was Kast. Indeed, the Republican Party, which always opposed the constitutional change, was the most voted of the day with 35% of the votes and control of 22 seats, according to the Electoral Service (Servel).
But the conservative advance increases if the vote obtained by the traditional right is added, of 21%, and 11 councillors.
For its part, the left-wing coalition that supports President Boric reached 29% of support and won 17 representatives.
“This is much more than any forecast had expected,” Claudia Heiss, head of the Political Science program at the University of Chile, told AFP about the representation that the ultra-conservative right achieved.
After the rejection of a first text in September, promoted by the government and its allies, the Chileans this time leaned towards the conservative forces, in a new attempt to renew the constitutional bases after the violent social outbreak of 2019, which revealed a unequal and fractured society.
The council elected this Sunday will receive, for its review and adjustments, a project previously prepared by experts with 12 essential principles that cannot be modified. One of them, for example, the one that establishes Chile as a market economy with state and private participation.
“Not only have they chosen us for our ideas, but also for our commitment and consistency, and for our connection to day-to-day problems. Common sense ideas have triumphed,” said Kast, 57.
The constituent council, which will be in session from June, must deliver the Political Charter project to be submitted to a ratification plebiscite on December 17.
Meanwhile, the traditional groups of the Chilean left, such as the Radical Party, the Christian Democracy or the Party for Democracy – which dominated the political scene after the return to democracy after Pinochet (1973-1990) – were left out of the Council . The populist People’s Party also won no seats.
The Mapuche Alihuen Antileo obtained a supranumerary indigenous quota, so that the council was made up of a total of 51 members. In the previous process, with reserved seats, the indigenous people reached 11% of the Assembly, with 17 representatives (out of 155 members).
But with 22 councilors, the Republican Party, which opposes abortion and has a discourse against migrants, “does not need to negotiate with anyone, they can write the Constitution they want” and “has the power to veto any modification,” added Claudia Heiss.
The advance of this political force “is very similar to a phenomenon that is occurring in other countries of the world, with the rise of right-wing parties, which call themselves without political correctness, without fear and without hesitation,” explained Miguel Ángel. Fernández, from the Faculty of Government of the Universidad del Desarrollo.
All of this shows that no matter how much street left-wing leaders like Boric and Petro want to show, societies prefer stability and argued debate to modify their estates. The question is whether, after what happened in Chile, Colombia wants to take note.
“We did not know how to listen to each other among those who thought differently”: Gabriel Boric
After this harsh defeat, the president of Chile, Gabriel Boric, assured that “we once again have the opportunity to build through dialogue and find a new Magna Carta.” For this reason, he invited the elected constituents to act “with wisdom and temperance” and asked them to avoid making the same mistakes that made the first attempt at constitutional change from a Constituent Assembly dominated that time by the left fail. “The previous process failed, among other things, because we did not know how to listen to each other among those who thought differently,” said the president, who called for building a new process without “vendettas.” The draft of that new Constitution was rejected by 62% of the votes in a referendum held on September 4 of last year.
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