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Can a new constitution solve Chile's old problems?

2020-10-25T03:56:45.839Z


With this Sunday's referendum Chile decides whether to replace its 40-year-old constitution, written during the Pinochet dictatorship.


Protesters gather in downtown Santiago on October 18, 2020, as the country prepares for a historic constitutional referendum.

(CNN) -

For a country at peace, Chile has experienced many recent unrest.

Churches were burned and hundreds were arrested during protests in the capital Santiago last weekend, nearly a year after at least 26 people were killed in fierce clashes over a rise in traffic fares.

The unrest has rocked a country hailed by the World Bank as "one of the fastest growing economies in Latin America," but where there is deep-seated anger over government policies seen as pro-rich.

This is the turbulent environment for Sunday's referendum that decides whether the country should replace its 40-year-old constitution, written during the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship.

  • MIRA: Protests in Chile: 580 arrested and one dead

Patricio Navia, a Chilean-born professor of Latin American and Caribbean Studies at New York University, said that many Chileans find it unacceptable to be governed by a document written during one of the darkest chapters in Chilean history.

“It's like someone who has a beautiful house, but doesn't want it anymore because it was built by a father who was a rapist.

Not that the house is bad.

It is because that father built it, "he said.

"Writing a new constitution is an act of atonement," says Navia.

"Since the Chileans could not imprison Pinochet for human rights violations, now they want to annul the constitution as a kind of historic judgment against him."

Pinochet died at the age of 91 in 2006, without having been convicted of any crime.

However, opponents say more than 3,000 people died as a result of political violence under his rule, especially during "Operation Condor," a campaign against political dissidents in the mid-1970s, including many whose bodies or fates they have never met.

Many thousands more were tortured in secret detention centers or intimidated into exile.

Why are Chileans protesting today?

The World Bank noted that the country's "strong macroeconomic framework" has allowed Chile to reduce the number of people living in poverty from 30% in 2000 to 3.7% in 2017. But, according to analysts who spoke to CNN , widespread inequality has produced deep resentment among those marginalized and unable to share the country's wealth.

The OECD reported in 2018 that the income inequality gap was more than 65% wider than the organization average "with one of the highest proportions" between the median income of the richest 10% and the poorest 10% .

"Not only are they not getting a piece of the cake, they haven't even been invited to the party," Navia said.

"And the demand for a new constitution is precisely that, a demand to be invited to the party."

The creation of a new constitution was adopted by the first left leaders after the fall of the military dictatorship in 1990. President Ricardo Lagos promoted the biggest reforms in 2005, and the current constitution includes more than 250 amendments, and the presidential candidates They first seriously discussed the idea of ​​a referendum in the 2009 campaign.

"The current one has a serious legitimacy problem," said Gabriel Boric, one of the leftist legislators who pushed for a referendum.

“On the one hand, we have pressing social needs like pensions, lowering legislators' salaries, raising taxes on the rich, freezing the cost of public services.

On the other hand, there is a deeper question about leveling the playing field.

What is the common framework that governs us all?

»

More than 14.8 million Chileans are eligible to vote on Sunday and various polls show that at least 70% are in favor of writing a new constitution.

If approved, it will take over a year to finish writing the new text.

Chileans not only decide if they get a new constitution, but who drafts it and how.

If, as expected, the creation of a new constitution is approved, a constitutional assembly would be elected in April 2021 at the same time that municipal and regional elections are expected to take place.

People demonstrate against changing the constitution in Santiago on October 21.

For Camila Vallejo, a member of the Communist Party of the Chamber of Deputies and a former student leader, writing a new constitution has to do with social justice.

“It is not just about education and health, but also the high cost of electricity bills, expensive fuel and public transport.

Chile is the only country in the world where water is completely privatized.

We have an extreme neoliberal model that has deepened inequality, ”Vallejo told Cenital, a Chilean news website.

But others say writing a new constitution may not be the best way to solve Chile's problems, which are similar to the challenges other Latin American countries face, including a lack of sustainable growth, poor job creation and endemic inequality.

Pedro Pizano, a public interest legal fellow at the McCain Institute for International Leadership, comments that getting rid of the current constitution is "not only a bad idea, it is also a terrible way to try to achieve the change that many Chileans want."

The Colombian-born analyst says his own country tried this experiment in 1991, gathering 100 people to draft a new constitution in five months with mixed results.

Everything that Chileans want, Pizano said, "can be addressed with amendments like the one we have made in the United States instead of rewriting the entire text."

«Can you create prosperity and equity from a blank slate?

Why hasn't the United States changed its own constitution even though we have amended it 27 times?

Israel and the United Kingdom do not have written constitutions.

However, in some way they are examples of liberal, democratic countries.

And that's what we want, ”said Pizano, noting that the best-written constitution does not guarantee everything Chileans want.

Navia, a NYU professor, agrees, saying lawmakers should focus on improving the economy.

«You cannot write in the constitution that there will be better pensions.

First you need the money for pensions.

And that can be achieved with better growth, more foreign investment and various other improvements that a new constitution could end up making more difficult to obtain.

Christopher Ulloa reported from Santiago de Chile

Referendum

Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2020-10-25

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