The constituent process of Chile does not end with the plebiscite

A woman celebrates in downtown Santiago the triumph of rejection in the constitutional plebiscite, on September 4, 2022, IVAN ALVARADO (REUTERS)

In the last three years, Chilean men and women have gone to the polls at least five different elections.

The first, and which marked the beginning of the constituent process, was the entry plebiscite, where the citizens gave a clear answer: 78% considered that the Constitution should be changed, and 79% considered that a Constitutional Convention was the way forward.

This Sunday we experienced what was a historic day, with overwhelming citizen participation, a transparent and efficient electoral process, and in less than two hours we already had the answer to the question that we had been asking ourselves for more than a year: if we approve or we reject the proposal written by the Constitutional Convention.

This September 4, the polls told us that the resulting text was not what the citizens expected, and the draft of the new Constitution was rejected.

How this result is interpreted and what are the steps to follow are the two big questions that arise at this time, still with the electoral hangover in tow.

There will be much reading on how to interpret this result.

To start, the overwhelming triumph of approval in 2020 cannot be ignored, nor the citizen demand for a new Constitution.

The results of the entry plebiscite told us that most people gave this process a chance, they didn't want to see it fail.

They were hoping for a new Constitution that could meet citizen demands, and they trusted their constituents, who for the most part did not come from the more traditional partisan politics, generating even greater expectations about their work and their capacity for dialogue and agreement.

However, the exit plebiscite shows us that the proposal issued by the Convention failed to channel these hopes and expectations.

In other words, we are facing a failed attempt by the Convention to generate a new Constitution.

Despite this, the clear triumph of the rejection should not be interpreted as a ratification of the current Constitution.

The citizen demand for a new Magna Carta seems to continue, so these results should be seen as a call for the entire political class, including those who were constituents, to seek agreements and work, from September 5 onwards, for a draft of a new Constitution that does have the support of the majority.

This scenario leads us to the second big question that this election leaves us, regarding the steps to follow from now on.

If the citizens evaluated this constitutional process negatively, but still want to reform or replace the current Constitution, what is done now?

Collecting these demands, a large part of the political class also agrees that the current Magna Carta, as it stands, cannot continue to govern our Republic.

However, there is very little agreement on how to proceed from here on out.

Both in the approval and in the rejection, different proposals were seen to continue this work: reform the current Constitution, generate a new constitutional convention or work on a new proposal considering other mechanisms to form the team in charge of writing it.

However, none of these three alternatives seems to be articulated today, and we are not clear about which of them will be carried out, much less how.

On a national broadcast, the President of the Republic calls us to dialogue, and that is where each and every one of us must position ourselves.

The time to analyze the results of this election is now, because it is from there that learning should emerge to start a new process that will allow us to have a Constitution that, as a country, makes us feel proud and satisfied with its text.

To analyze these results, the political class should not be arrogant.

As a country, we should not assume that this entire process ends today, nor that a new process starts from scratch.

We must learn from our successes, and even more from the mistakes made during this process, with the aim of finding the path that allows us to have a democratic Political Constitution and in accordance with our times.

One thing is clear: this process does not start or end today.

Victoria León Porath 

is a sociologist, and has a master's degree in Social Research Methods

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