Chile tries again this Sunday a constitutional change, although in very different circumstances from the recent and failed attempt closed in 2022: the election of 50 members of the Constitutional Council -25 men and 25 women- takes place in a climate of disinterest and apathy on the part of the citizens and of expectation and nervousness among the parties, who see the possibility of a political overturn.
“I deeply trust the democratic wisdom of the Chilean people,” President Gabriel Boric said succinctly on Thursday night, in clear contrast to what his role was in the previous constitutional process, closed with a plebiscite in September 2022 that the ” no” won by 62% after a campaign in which the head of state turned enthusiastically in favor of “yes”. This time he chose to hardly talk about it.
That fervor for the constitutional change unleashed after the social explosion of October 2019, which ended up bringing the most left-wing government since Salvador Allende in the 1970s to the La Moneda Palace, no longer exists: in Plaza Baquedano (or “Dignity”, as the protesters renamed it) you can see three tanks that act as a deterrent. And a few kilometers away, in the upper and upper middle class neighborhood of Vitacura, the fervor of youth is not for the constitutional change, but for getting, after waiting for more than an hour, the coveted “donuts” from a local Fashion.
“In La Moneda they have been preparing for months for what they anticipate as an electoral coup against the ruling party, something that is evidenced by all the public surveys and the same projections of La Moneda,” said “La Tercera” this weekend.
The Constitutional Council will work on a preliminary text prepared by a group of experts, a very different process from the previous one, in which the constituent convention, made up of few experts, quite a few politicians and a few quirky characters, produced a text indigestible to the majority of the Chileans, who may lead La Moneda to the left, but they remain an essentially conservative people.
Approving a Constitution that leaves in memory the one sanctioned in 1980 during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet went from being Boric’s engine and impulse on the road to the presidency to a whole karma for the young head of state. If last year the “no” victory included a certain plebiscite fund for the administration that began on March 11, 2022, for today’s vote it is clear that many will vote with the intention of punishing the government.
In recent weeks, a rejuvenated and fervent José Antonio Kast has been seen touring the Chilean geography. Candidate of the hard right defeated in December 2021 by Boric in a ballotage, Kast wants to establish himself as the clear reference for the entire opposition arc, something that the candidates of the moderate right will seek to avoid. On the horizon, the 2025 presidential elections.
The Constituent Convention that is born from today’s vote will force agreements anyway: the articles are approved with a majority of three-fifths of the 50 members of the body. Thus, 30 votes are needed, which none of the lists presented is even remotely in a position to obtain. The blocking majority, 21 votes, is the great fear of the government in case the hardest right comes close to that figure.
And another fact to understand that this Sunday’s election goes beyond deciding constituents: the Convention will be chosen through the same electoral system used to vote for the Senate, where today there is a tie between the left-wing and right-wing coalitions. Thus, after the election it will be inevitable to see in the Constituent Convention the reflection of what the Senate should be today, and there is nothing to suggest that in this comparison the government coalition will be favored.
Boric, at 37 years old and the youngest head of state or government in the Americas, has been suffering premature wear and tear. The citizen security crisis has added to inflationary growth and an environment that combines the disappointment of many of his supporters with the impatience of many of his opponents. Criticized by the most radical sectors of the left-wing coalition that brought him to power, Boric has been increasingly relying on figures from the Socialist Party, which he summoned to the government as ministers.
Thus, an irony circulates in Chilean politics: Boric only needs to summon Michelle Bachelet, the former socialist president. Quite a contrast with the Boric of until just over a year ago, who harshly criticized the “30 years” of democratic governments, with a focus on the Concertación, a moderate center-left that marked Chile since the return of democracy in 1990. Boric now leans on those whom he criticized for having defrauded the Chileans.
“In La Moneda they recognize that with today’s results they risk the historic opportunity to have a new Fundamental Charter written in democracy, but also the unity of their government alliance,” said “La Tercera.” “The political conditions to comply with the main reforms of his program and – beyond – his ability to give continuity to his political project in the presidency.”
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