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Chile begins the electoral race towards the reform of the Pinochet Constitution

2020-08-26T15:28:17.781Z


More than 14 million voters are called to participate in a referendum called for October 25This Wednesday the electoral campaign that will define the fate of the current Constitution, drawn up in 1980 by the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship, begins in Chile. The plebiscite of October 25 is the most relevant election of the South American country in recent decades, which will define its foundations in the next half century. And it is unprecedented in the world. For the first time, a referen...


This Wednesday the electoral campaign that will define the fate of the current Constitution, drawn up in 1980 by the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship, begins in Chile. The plebiscite of October 25 is the most relevant election of the South American country in recent decades, which will define its foundations in the next half century. And it is unprecedented in the world. For the first time, a referendum will consult its citizens simultaneously whether or not they want to replace the Fundamental Charter - whether they approve or reject that idea - and who will write it. If a constitutional convention whose 155 assembly members will be specially elected for that purpose or if a mixed convention, also composed of parliamentarians. It is the commitment of the institutionality to lead the public annoyance that exploded last October in the form of protest and violence.

There will be 14.8 million people who are summoned to the polls in an election of voluntary participation. If the Pinochet Constitution is finally replaced - a dogmatic Fundamental Charter that does not unite Chileans and that has undergone dozens of modifications - fundamental issues such as the political regime will be discussed: whether to maintain presidentialism or change towards a semi-presidential or parliamentary system. A new Constitution, in turn, will define the level of decentralization and regionalization that the country will have, as well as matters related to the institutional inclusion of indigenous peoples.

The Chilean constituent debate will discuss the economic development model and the characteristics of the State itself, where one of the main tensions will be the amount of social rights that are incorporated as guarantees in a new Fundamental Charter. The existence of organizations such as the Constitutional Court - which in Chile acts as a third chamber, according to critics - will also be an issue that must be resolved.

The different political parties have begun to deploy their campaigns on different platforms this Wednesday. The far-right Republican party says on one of its posters: “The plebiscite will destroy Chile. Chile does not need to change the Constitution, it needs to change the politicians ”. The socialists, together with the PPD and the radicals - who in the past formed the center-left Concertación - point to the reasons for the change: "For a more egalitarian, inclusive and non-discriminatory country ... new Constitution and constitutional convention." In parallel, the radios will begin to broadcast propaganda with electoral information of citizen interest. The television slot, meanwhile, will start on September 25, as long as the plebiscite is not suspended again due to the covid-19 health crisis, as it already happened once (it was originally scheduled for April 26).

Change has a majority

Two months before the referendum, the result seems clear, at least according to opinion polls. According to the latest survey by the Active company in the first half of August, the option of those who approve of changing the Constitution reaches 68% and that of those who reject it 10.3%, while the constitutional convention obtains 49% against 25.8% of a mixed convention. The trend of the result has been repeated in all the 2020 surveys.

Those who do not want to change the Constitution are on the doctrinal right, from parties like the UDI. But among those in favor of replacing her, there are citizens of the left and of the right. In fact, the leader most likely to assume a candidacy in the ruling party next year, Mayor Joaquín Lavín - Opus Dei, a former collaborator of the Pinochet regime and a member of the UDI - has openly declared his vote for a new Fundamental Charter. The right, therefore, is divided with a view to the plebiscite.

With the beginning of the campaign for the referendum today, an election marathon begins in Chile. If those who want to change the Constitution win the option, there will be another seven elections between 2021 and 2022. The election of constituents for the convention - which will be made up of at least 50% women, a great novelty in Chilean politics - will be would be held on April 11 next. From the date of its installation, a period of nine months will begin to run to draft and approve the constitutional text, which can be postponed for another three months. The work of the convention, therefore, must be finished no later than May 2022 and be ratified by a new plebiscite, this time with the mandatory vote of all citizens.

High abstention

The electoral participation on October 25 is unknown. First, because Chile has one of the highest abstention rates in the region. In the 2016 municipal elections, 36% of the citizens voted, 46% in the first presidential round of 2017 and 49% in the ballot. It is a trend marked since the 1990s that became even more evident in 2012, with the voluntary vote.

But a second issue calls into question the assistance: the pandemic that has left at least 11,000 dead, the first wave of which is not yet under control. Without electronic voting or other alternative ways of exercising the right to vote, the Electoral Service works against the clock to present norms that guarantee a safe plebiscite, even for risk groups that could be subtracted for fear of contagion. In Chile, people between 60 and 74 years old are the ones who go to vote the most.

The polls, however, show a lot of citizen interest in this plebiscite, which had its origin precisely in the social protests of last year. When it seemed that there was no way out of an unprecedented social and political crisis, the most important forces with representation in Parliament offered a new Constitution, a solution that the country's doctrinal right - which is part of the government coalition of Sebastián Piñera - reluctantly agreed.

According to the latest Cadem poll, 69% of the people have “totally” decided to vote in the plebiscite and 63% of those surveyed state that they are interested in the referendum. But people in Chile, however, are resisting the process of de-escalation of quarantines by covid-19 and concern about contagions increases (65% declare themselves quite concerned, according to the same opinion poll last Sunday) . In fact, the government authorities have already begun to rule out that the infected can exercise their right to vote.

President Piñera has asked to dispense with the plebiscite process, because both his political bloc and his own cabinet are divided. It is a position that those in favor of changing the Constitution do not understand, because it was the president himself who opened the door to a constituent path and could have assumed a leading role with a view to a fundamental political process. In an interview over the weekend, Piñera chose to de-dramatize the election result and focus, above all, on the contents of a probable Magna Carta. The Executive, two months before the plebiscite, seeks not to assume as its own the probable defeat of those who do not want to change it.

Source: elparis

All news articles on 2020-08-26

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