Chileans are electing this Sunday, May 7, the 50 constituents who will be responsible for drafting a constitution to end the one drafted by dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1980. This had privatized health, education, transport and even water. . A first draft constitution was widely rejected by Chileans on September 4, 2022.
“This text was interpreted as an excessive text, recalls Stéphanie Alenda, professor of political sociology at the Andres Bello University in Santiago de Chile. He proposed a new political system, a new structure of the State, which became plurinational”. The 155 editors of this first draft were mostly from civil society and had been elected as independent candidates from the traditional parties.
This time the process has returned to the fold of the parties and the Congress has defined safeguards to avoid the “excesses” and blunders of the text rejected in September. Thus the constituents will work on a preliminary draft drafted by 24 experts, 12 appointed by the Senate and 12 by Congress. 12 points have been defined as the “constitutional bases” for drafting the new fundamental text.
350 candidates are running for this ballot. Five lists have been submitted. The parties of left-wing President Gabriel Boric’s government are divided into two lists corresponding to the two coalitions that support him: Unity for Chile, which includes Boric’s Frente Amplio, the Communist Party, the Socialist Party and the Liberal Party. A center-left list with two parties participating in the government, the party for democracy and the radical party allied with Christian Democracy. A Chile Seguro list made up of the traditional right. The People’s Party, of the populist Franco Parisi also presents a list. And finally the radical right party the Republicans of the finalist in the last presidential election, Jose Antonio Kast. There are also three independent candidates and two Mapuche candidates.
The government came out very weakened by the rejection of the first text in September. Promoter at the start of a text which was to make it possible to come out on top of the serious social crisis which had shaken the country in 2019, Gabriel Boric had ended up displaying only discreet support for the text, understanding that the Chileans do not were not ready for such a drastic change as that envisaged in the draft constitution. The current situation of the government is delicate. He seems to be giving up more and more on his first orientations, creating tensions between the parties of the coalition. Thus, the decision to declare a state of emergency in the Mapuche region was very badly received by several government parties. The latest decision to deploy the army to the northern border to control migration flows has only deepened divisions.
The traditional right does not seem in a position to come back in force. It is the Republican Party of Jose Antonio Kast which has the wind in its sails at the time of this election. A somewhat paradoxical situation, this party having shown its opposition to the abandonment of Pinochet’s constitution. The party could win 30 of the 50 seats to be filled, which would put it in an ideal position to block any substantial change in the functioning of Chilean institutions. “Gabriel Boric was in favor of a health system mainly controlled by the state, with the possibility of accessing private mutual insurance, recalls Stéphanie Alenda. It is likely that we will move towards a more liberal system, involving the possibility of choosing between public or private management, if, as the polls predict, the right is in a strong position in the new constituent assembly”.
Still, the population is little mobilized for this election. “The working classes, in particular, have a very low interest in the constitutional process, observes Stéphanie Alenda. They are going to vote on Sunday because voting is compulsory. The participation rate is likely to be high, but mainly because of the risk of penalties”.
The constituent assembly will begin its work on June 7. The final text will have to be presented on October 21 and it will be submitted to a referendum on November 26. A new rejection would definitively bury the idea of abandoning Pinochet’s constitution and would place the Boric government in a very uncomfortable situation.
Despite this disinterest of the population, this election is important for the country because “it will redraw the Chilean political landscape, analyzes Stéphanie Alenda. If the Republican party continues to expand its audience, we will see new dynamics on the right. On the government side, if the centre-left coalition obtains disappointing results, this could create tensions with the most left-wing coalition composed mainly of Gabriel Boric’s party and the Communist party, which has a weaker representation within the government. government team. “The new political landscape could consist of a reinforcement of the extremes with the Republicans on one side and the Communist Party on the other, which would see itself entitled to criticize the government’s security policy,” concludes Stéphanie Alenda.