Chile has said no to the proposal for a new constitution drawn up by a right-wing-dominated Constitutional Council. With a count of 54.2%, the “No” option outperforms the “Yes” alternative by 55.16%, compared to 44.84% in the constitutional vote this Sunday, in which 15.4 million voters were called to the polls. This was the most likely outcome, judging by polls released 15 days ago, before the ban on new polls took effect. But it was a wide open race, in part because compulsory voting adds new voters, confounding the results, and because the polls showed an upward trend in the option to do so. After four years of the constituent process, Chile is therefore returning to the same moment as in November 2019, when the political world offered society to amend the Constitution to overcome the social outbreak through institutional means. And it remains the letter, which has been in force since 1980, during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, and has undergone around 70 reforms since the fall of communism.
The South American country breaks the record of rejecting two constitutional proposals. And with this Sunday's popular vote with high turnout, four years of the constitutional process have been completed. It did so, as the South American country is wont to do, with an example of civility: voting tables set up on time, millions of people quietly waiting for their turn to vote, expedited voting, political leaders with a state-like presence Attitude and an electoral service that enjoys the respect of everyone and delivers results quickly. There are two options on the ballot: for and against a text drawn up by a Constitutional Council dominated by the right, particularly the conservative Republican Party, a formation close to Vox. The left had to make do this Sunday with a choice “between something bad and something terrible,” as the socialist Michelle Bachelet, twice president of Chile, noted during the morning vote. For this reason, this bloc rejected the proposal and, paradoxically, preferred to maintain the constitution that came from the dictatorship.
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For the left, the text radicalized the neoliberal project of 1980 and presented values far removed from the secularization and common sense of contemporary Chilean society. “This proposal threatens Chile’s progress on equality and non-discrimination for women,” said lawyer Macarena Sáez, executive director of the women’s rights division at Human Rights Watch (HRW). For the text's defenders, however, the proposal was not a “right-wing constitution,” as one of its architects, constitutional lawyer Jorge Barrera, chief adviser to the Republican Party, told this newspaper. Without major differences from the current constitution, it integrated a central theme: it proposed that basic services in the areas of health, education and pensions be financed from general income, but ensured mixed provision and envisaged the existence of a state and a private system.
It was a four-year process. This phase began with the November 2019 agreements, when the political class offered citizens a path to amend the constitution. Now it doesn't seem at all clear that the country's problems stem from her. There are those who, like the sociologist Eugenio Tironi, have wondered whether it might not have been better to pursue a more modest plan of socio-economic reforms rather than embark on a reform of the constitutional text. These were the worst days of the social outbreak, which unsettled not only the conservative government of Sebastián Piñera, but also democracy. There were massive demonstrations with different demands and unprecedented violence.
Failure in 2022
Chile then initiated a constituent process to attempt to overcome what the left believed was an illegitimate constitution due to its dictatorial origins. By the time of the referendum this Sunday, this period has been extended by four years. Chileans have gone to the polls five times to try to overcome the letter of 1980 (or 2005, since the most recent reforms were carried out by the socialist president Ricardo Lagos, whose signature appears in the current text). There was a failed attempt in 2022 when voters rejected the proposal for a left-dominated party conference by 62%. The referendum this Sunday was therefore the second and final attempt. It is an example of civility because practically all political sectors know that in the short and medium term this is the end of the constitutional process.
“Whatever the outcome, the constituent process ends here,” said Gabriel Boric’s government spokeswoman Camila Vallejo, a communist activist. The right-wing mayor Evelyn Matthei, who heads the municipality of Providencia, one of the wealthiest in Santiago de Chile, took the same approach. “The only thing I hope is that we finally complete this phase,” said Matthei, the main figure of the traditional right for the 2025 presidential elections. In these elections there will be a strong competitor from the far right, the leader of the Republican Party , José Antonio Kast, who won the first round against Boric in 2021.
In Chile, there is talk of constitutional fatigue to explain the fatigue of voters who have shown rather indifference to this second attempt to change the constitution. The high voter turnout is primarily explained by compulsory voting, which was reintroduced last year and made the results more uncertain. Chileans' worries lie in other emergencies that cannot be solved with a new letter.
There is a security crisis affecting the poorest. Within five years, Chile's murder rate per 100,000 inhabitants rose from 4.5 to 6.7. While 845 murders were committed in 2018, there will be 1,322 in 2022, according to official information. According to the Paz Ciudadana Foundation, Chileans' fear of committing a crime has reached an all-time high. The economy has not grown for more than a decade, public school education has not overcome the crisis that began to manifest itself in the 2006 protests almost 20 years ago, while the private healthcare system faces serious problems that burden the public could lead to a catastrophe. This is what President Boric said during the vote in his hometown of Punta Arenas in the far south of the country: “Regardless of the result of the referendum, we will work for the people's priorities,” he said. His government still has more than two years ahead of it, until March 2026.
Like every referendum, this one polarized the country. The positions of former presidents show it. While Bachelet and Lagos were against it, the Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle (1994-2000) and the conservative Sebastián Piñera, twice president of Chile (2010-2014 and 2018-2022), voted in favor. “I hope that we use this opportunity to adopt a democratic constitution,” Piñera said.
But at no time was Chile's stability or the solidity of its democracy at stake, which, however, faces numerous challenges, such as the great dissatisfaction of citizens with politics and with institutions such as parties, congresses and governments.
Starting this Monday, Chile will begin to learn lessons. Alfredo Sepúlveda, author and academic at Diego Portales University (UDP), believes that this process “was clearly a failure, no matter how you look at it.” “Since 2019, despite violence and the pandemic, the country has been in all economic and social Indices have only declined” and as a result “neither the current nor the proposed text will represent a real, comprehensive and consensual social pact, which is what was sought from the beginning and was the only thing that made sense.” Nevertheless, the one recognizes the Author specialized in the history of Chile states that the country “is built on an unwritten democratic tradition that presupposes the preservation of institutions, habits and customs (Presidency of the Republic, bicameral system, public liberties, peaceful transfer of power), which constitutes a kind of tacit customary law represent,” he wrote in EL PAÍS.
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