2023-09-10 12:00:00
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Fifty years after the coup, the Basic Law, imposed by the dictator, remains in force. Maybe she wasn’t that bad?
By Michel Faure On September 9, 2023, in Santiago, Chile, a pro-Pinochet demonstration celebrating fifty years of the military coup, led by General Augusto Pinochet against socialist President Salvador Allende, on September 11, 1973. © LUCAS AGUAYO ARAOS / ANADOLU AGENCY / Anadolu Agency via AFP
It’s strange, but that’s the way it is: a few days after his bloody coup d’etat of September 11, 1973, Augusto Pinochet, Chilean dictator, decided that his country had to be given a new Constitution which he wanted to be “authoritarian and protected”. This becomes a reality after a dubious plebiscite on September 11, 1980, which brings together 67% of voters for the “yes” against 30.2% for the “no”. The poll was organized without electoral lists, burned by the junta. Its legitimacy, therefore, is more than fragile. This Constitution also remains unloved for having been designed under the dictatorship. It used to be imagined that it would no longer exist once democracy was restored. Now, unbelievably, here it is still in force in Chile today, thirty-three years after the end of the dicta…
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