It is a totally upset political landscape that appears after the election, this Sunday, May 7, of the fifty members of the constitutional council which must write a new constitution to replace that of the regime of dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1980. The far-right party Partido Republicano led by José Antonio Kast won 35% of the vote and won 22 seats. It is followed by the left-wing coalition, Unidad para Chile, supporting President Gabriel Boric with 29% of the vote, or 17 seats. In last position, we find the list of the traditional right, Chile seguro, with 21% of the votes, or 11 seats. The right and the far right therefore have more than two-thirds of the seats. José Antonio Kast’s party has largely become Chile’s leading party. Kast had qualified in December 2021 for the second round of the presidential election and had been beaten by the left-wing candidate, Gabriel Boric. The left will therefore not be able to use its veto during the constitutional discussion. The drafting of the text should be completed in September and a referendum will be organized in December.
This is the second process of constitutional reform that has been initiated in Chile in less than two years. The first ended with the rejection by the population of the new text proposed (more than 60% of no) on September 4th. The text was considered too “excessive” by many. Its 150 editors were mostly from civil society and minority rights were at the center of their proposals, including the creation of a “multinational state”.
This time, the 50 constituents have been appointed by the parties and will not have complete freedom to write the new constitution. They will have to decide on a text written by 24 experts defining 12 constitutional principles.
“Today is the first day of a better future for our country,” rejoiced José Antonio Kast amid shouts of “Long live Chile” and “Thrashing” from his supporters. Gabriel Boris recognized “failure”. He explained that the first attempt at constitutional reform failed because of a lack of dialogue between people who think differently. “I want to urge the Republican Party not to repeat the mistake we made.”
“Will the mainstream right withstand the Tsunami? The temptation to follow Kast will be great, writes political scientist Cristobal Rovira in the Spanish daily El Pais. Everyone from Communists to Republicans has been debating security day and night and it’s a far-right issue. As in Europe, if everyone talks about immigration, the one who wins the battle is the one who is against immigration”.
Chile is experiencing a massive wave of migration from Venezuela, which has been in a serious crisis since 2018. The Boric government has resolved to deploy the army to the north of the country to control the border. One hundred and fifteen Venezuelan immigrants, some of whom had been stranded for two weeks at the border between Chile and Peru, arrived in Caracas on Sunday in a plane chartered by the authorities.
The Republican Party, which opposes abortion and has an anti-immigrant rhetoric, “will not need to negotiate with anyone, it can write the constitution it wants” and “will have the power to ‘use your veto to block any amendment,’ predicted Claudia Heiss, director of the faculty of political science at the University of Chile, to AFP.
The rest will depend on the strategic choices of the traditional right, made up of the UDI, Renovacion nacional and Evopoli. Two options are available to its members: either they harden their positions and follow the Partido republicano of Antonio Kast, a former member of the UDI. Either they keep their distance from the extreme right party and try to negotiate with the other sectors of the Constitutional Council. UDI leader Javier Macaya said his party was ready “to make good deals with the Partido republicano”. He felt that “octubrismo has been defeated”.
The octubrismo refers to the serious crisis that affected the country in October 2019. It was during this crisis that the idea of a new constitution was put forward to respond to the social and political demands expressed by the social movements that agitated the country. The traditional right then rallied, without much enthusiasm, to the idea of putting an end to Pinochet’s constitution. Republicans have always said that they were opposed to a change in the constitution. From now on, the Chileans will have to choose next December between the constitution of Pinochet and that of José Antonio Kast.