Chile Says ‘No’ to Left-Leaning Constitution After 3 Years of Debate

Chilean flag (Image source: Flickr)

For the past three years, Chileans have fought over a path forward for their country in the form of a new constitution, written entirely from scratch, that would transform their society and grant more rights than any national charter before it.

On Sunday, voters overwhelmingly rejected that text.

The proposed changes had looked to remake one of the most conservative countries in Latin America into one of the world’s most left-leaning societies, but Chileans decided that went too far.

With virtually all of the ballots counted, 62% of voters rejected the proposal.

The emphatic rejection was an abrupt ending to a long and sometimes painful process that had promised a political revolution for this South American nation of 19 million, but instead leaves Chile deeply divided over its future.

Chile is left, for now, with the same system of laws that has its roots in the brutal dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, who ruled from 1973-90.

Now the question is what comes next.

President Gabriel Boric said in an address to the nation Sunday night that, starting Monday, he would meet with leaders of Congress to begin a new process toward a rewritten constitution.

“Chileans’ decision demands our institutions and political leaders to work harder, with more dialogue, respect and care, until we reach a proposal that reflects us all,” said Boric, a leftist who was betting on the new constitution to help him carry out his vision for the country.

“As president of republic, I take this message with great humility,” he added. “We must listen to the voice of the people.”

Chile’s decision to replace its constitution began in 2019, with nationwide protests first spurred by a 4-cent hike in subway fares. The unrest ultimately left 30 dead.

In the wake of the violence, political leaders agreed to put the nation’s constitution up for referendum, and in 2020, nearly 4 out of 5 Chileans voted to scrap it.

But the transformational vision laid out by a constitutional convention of 154 elected members, many of them political outsiders, proved too drastic of an overhaul.

Now, Chile’s political establishment will have to decide the next steps, and it appeared that the broad rejection Sunday had given Chile’s conservatives control.

“There is no question that the 1980 constitution is dead,” said Isabel Allende, a leftist senator and the daughter of the former socialist president, Salvador Allende, who died by suicide in 1973 as Pinochet’s military coup was closing in on the presidential palace.

“The right has committed that, in the case that the proposal was rejected, there would be a new constitution,” she added. “So hopefully they keep their word.”

Ximena Rincón, a centrist senator who helped lead the campaign to reject the new charter, said in a speech to supporters: “We have a new opportunity, and we cannot miss it.”

Sunday’s vote was an enormous setback for Boric, a tattooed, 36-year-old former student-protest leader who took office in March. He has quickly faced plummeting approval ratings amid rising inflation and crime. Now, instead of using a new constitution to shift the country leftward, much of his term is likely to be mired in more political fighting about the country’s constitutional future.

Chilean voters rejected a 170-page, 388-article proposal that would have legalized abortion, mandated universal health care, required gender parity in government, given Indigenous groups greater autonomy, empowered labor unions, strengthened regulations on mining, and granted rights to nature and animals.

In total, it would have enshrined more than 100 rights into Chile’s national charter, more than any other constitution in the world, including the right to housing, education, clean air, water, food, sanitation, internet access, retirement benefits, free legal advice and care “from birth to death.”

And it would have eliminated the Senate, strengthened regional governments and allowed Chilean presidents to run for a second consecutive term.

The text included commitments to fight climate change and protect Chileans’ right to choose their own identity “in all its dimensions and manifestations, including sexual characteristics, gender identities and expressions.”

The proposal’s sweeping ambition and decidedly leftist slant turned off many Chileans, including many who previously had voted to replace the current text. There was widespread uncertainty about its implications and cost, some of which was fueled by misleading information, including claims that it would have banned homeownership and that abortion would have been allowed in the ninth month of pregnancy.

Economists expected the proposed changes to cost from 9% to 14% of Chile’s $317 billion gross domestic product. The country has long been one of the lowest relative spenders on public services among major democracies.

After the constitutional referendum in 2020, Chileans elected more than 150 people to write the new system of rules. Independents won more than half the seats, including lawyers, academics, journalists, two actors, a dentist, a mechanic, a chess master and a bevy of left-wing activists, including one who became famous for protesting in a Pikachu costume. Seventeen seats went to Indigenous people.

Leftists, who won more than two-thirds of the seats, took full control of the process; they did not need a single vote from conservative convention members to approve additions to the proposal.

As a result, said Ricardo Lagos, the center-left president of Chile from 2000-06, the proposal was “extremely partisan.”

But it was the highly publicized behavior of some of the convention’s members that might have repelled Chileans even more. One constitution member was revealed to be faking a cancer diagnosis he had used in his election campaign. Another took a shower with his camera on during a remote vote.

Patricio Fernández, a leftist writer who was a member of the convention, said he regretted that those headlines might have helped spoil a historic opportunity for his country.

“I’m far from believing that this is a perfect proposal,” he said before the vote. “But it is a democratic agreement that incorporated many voices that historically have been marginalized in Chile.”

(Author: Jack Nicas)/(c.2021 The New York Times Company)