Chile faces another step this Sunday in its process of institutional refounding with the holding of new elections to elect a constituent assembly, in charge of drafting the long-awaited Magna Carta that must replace the text promoted by the dictatorship of General Pinochet which, however, has already been amended 62 times in the democratic stage.
It will be the second constituent in two years, after the failure of the first attempt to draft a Constitution. A first draft of a fundamental text was rejected in a referendum in September last year by 62% of Chileans, which plunged the country even further into disenchantment and caused the first major crisis of confidence in the hopeful left-wing government of President Gabriel. Boric, who had arrived at La Moneda in March of last year.
The rejection was interpreted as a punishment for the anarchic constitutional process initiated after the social outbreak of 2019 that led to a joint Constitutional Convention, clearly progressive and with broad representation of the original peoples, but with many outsiders and independent anti-system.
During a year of work, several scandals affected some conventional members and undermined the prestige of the organ. Finally, the proposed text ended up seeming too radical for the taste of the majority of Chileans, who during the social revolt had demanded in the streets a profound transformation of the neoliberal socioeconomic model bequeathed by the dictatorship (1973-1990).
The rejected text declared, in its first article, that Chile would be a “social and democratic state of law”, which is not in question in this second attempt either. However, subsequent opinion studies identified that one of the main reasons for rejection was that the first text also established that the State would be “plurinational, intercultural and ecologicalâ€.
Thus, Chileanness was reacting against the growing political role of the native communities -especially the Mapuche people, who have been causing some tension in their natural territory, AraucanÃa, through violent groups for years- and the direct consequence has been that in one of the twelve lines Red flags set for the drafting of the second constitutional project insist that “the State of Chile is unitary.”
“The Constitution recognizes indigenous peoples as part of the Chilean nation, which is one and indivisible,” says the fourth of those red lines, the twelve “constitutional bases” approved last December by political parties with parliamentary representation in an agreement that set the roadmap for a process that will take place this Sunday to elect the 50 members of the Constitutional Council, a substantially lower figure than the 155 members of the previous failed constituent.
This Council is complemented by two more bodies, the Expert Commission -which is already drafting a draft Constitution- and the Admissibility Technical Committee -which will monitor compliance with the aforementioned red lines-, elected by Parliament and made up of experts and jurists. In this way, the parties ensure control of the new Constitution, which pleases the establishment and the opposition right, which, however, no longer discusses as before the social outbreak the need for a new Magna Carta and the inclusion in it of social rights.
In fact, although in the first constituent the right was relegated to an irrelevant role by failing to obtain the third of the seats that would have allowed it to block articles, now the expectation is radically opposite, since it is the left that could have problems reaching to the third of the chamber.
Today voting is compulsory and Chileans seem to have forgotten about social demands. The polls indicate that they have lost interest in the constituent process to start demanding order and security, given the alarming increase in violent crimes, amplified by the main media.
Two years ago the surprise of the constituent was the independents, but now the Council will basically be made up of members of the five coalitions that are running – three from the right and two from the left, one of which includes the majority of government parties – and that group the political formations.
On this occasion, Boric -with an approval rating of only 26%- and the members of his government have decided to stay out of the campaign to avoid being harmed by results that could show a shift to the right in Chilean society, which that would make it more complex for the young president to carry out his ambitious progressive agenda to implement a welfare state in Chile.
However, Boric said on Friday that he trusts “deeply in the democratic wisdom of the Chilean people” and that he has “no doubt that we are going to have an exemplary day in terms of both participation and democratic deepening.” The president made these statements upon arriving in Punta Arenas, the Patagonian city where he was born and where he will vote today. “In our country, there has been a need for a long time to adapt the rules that govern us to the times we live in, and I believe that the majority of the people of Chile have spoken in that direction,” added Boric.
