Members of the recently formed Expert Commission for the constituent process pose this Monday at the former headquarters of Congress in Santiago (Chile).ELVIS GONZALEZ (EFE)
The new Chilean constitutional process, which started on Monday with the installation of a commission of 24 experts, does not stop.
Electoral propaganda begins this Wednesday with a view to the election on May 7, when citizens will once again have to go to the polls to elect a 50-member constitutional council, a joint body that will draft a new Magna Carta proposal.
It is Chile's second attempt to have a new Constitution, although this new process has substantive differences from the previous one, which failed when 62% of Chileans flatly rejected the proposal for a convention that sought to change Chilean institutions.
It is a two-month campaign in which 350 candidates will seek to become some of the 50 councillors.
Five lists compete, with the particularity that the left is divided into two.
Something similar happened on the right, because the extreme right and the traditional right are not united to face this crucial election.
"The five lists represent the five tendencies of Chilean society in politics today," says political analyst Pepe Auth.
“Chile is no longer a question between two political camps separated by a moat.
There is a right beyond the right and before there was almost nothing to the left of the Concertación [the governments that led the transition between 1990 and 2010].
Today, clearly, two different realities are expressed: a reformist center-left and a more radical one, where the Communist Party has an important weight.
And a populist center appears with the People's Party, ”he adds, referring to the opposition political force led by Franco Parisi, who came third in the first presidential round of 2021 with 12.8%.
The election of the constitutional council, the first since compulsory voting was restored, will take place on May 7 and its members will begin work a month later.
Although the 50 councillors, 25 men and 25 women, are the ones who will draft the new text, they will not start from scratch: they will receive as input a preliminary draft of the Constitution that an expert commission of 24 members and equal, nominated by the political parties and ratified by Congress.
This group, made up mostly of lawyers, has three months to deliver their proposal.
Avoid the previous fiasco
This second Chilean constitutional stage was enabled after an agreement signed by the majority of the political forces with representation in Parliament, after the failed process of 2021 and 2022. But Chile today lives in a very different social context from almost two years ago. when the convention started that ended up being a fiasco.
Most of the surveys show the Chileans' lack of interest in the constitutional issue.
A February study by the pollster Pulso Ciudadano indicates that, although 50.8% of the population is in favor of changing the Constitution, 57% have expressed little or no confidence in the process.
If the constitutional convention was made up of 155 members, the constitutional council has almost a third less, 50 members.
The times will be limited: in this new attempt they will not have a year of work, but just five months, between June 7 and November 7, because the exit plebiscite will be held on December 17.
In addition, certain borders were set for this process: along with the role of the expert commission, 12 constitutional bases were established that cannot be broken, such as that Chile will continue to be a Republic and a unitary State.
A committee of 14 arbitrators will ensure that these premises are met.
But one of the biggest differences is that the parties have been protagonists in the conformation of the five lists.
“Today the electorate is disputed from the radical left to the radical right.
There are no independents, as was the election of the constitutional convention, where four out of 10 voters voted for their lists without really knowing what their candidate's program and trajectory was,” Auth explains.
The five disputed lists
The one on May 7 will be the election of the 50 councilors, but, because it is the first with a mandatory vote since its reinstatement in 2022, it is a dispute where the different political forces will measure their strength, even within the ruling party and the opposition .
The official bloc,
Unity for Chile
, is made up of the Broad Front (FA) –the conglomerate to which President Gabriel Boric belongs–, the Communist Party (PC) and the Socialist Party (PS).
Former President Michelle Bachelet (PS), who has already resettled in Chile after her work at the United Nations, has backed a pact socialist candidate and was asked by her party to take a role in the campaign.
The other bet represents a center-left hybrid,
Todo por Chile
.
It is made up of the Party for Democracy (PPD) –part of the Boric Administration–, the Radical Party and the Christian Democracy (which is outside the Government).
It is the first election since 1990 in which the PS and the PPD, historical allies in the elections, go separately.
“There is a list that claims to be absolutely pro-government and another with a pro-government component and a neutral component.
This makes it easier for the election of constitutional advisers not to take place between the Government and the opposition, which is the worst thing that can happen to the Government, which turned the plebiscite of September 4, 2022 into a plebiscite on its management, ”says Auth.
The opposition is divided into two lists, like the ruling party.
One, from the extreme right, that of the Republican Party, whose leader is the former presidential candidate José Antonio Kast, who went to the second round against Boric and obtained 44.13%.
The other,
Chile Seguro
, is made up of the Independent Democratic Union (UDI), Evópoli and the party of former president Sebastián Piñera (2018-2022), Renovación Nacional (RN).
On Sunday, the former president announced that in this process he will be "active" and that he will accompany the candidates of his bloc in the campaign, although he will not be on the television slot.
“I am going to collaborate with ideas, with contributions, with content,” he said over the weekend.
Kast, who has said that Chile does not need a new Constitution, has played a leading role in this second phase.
"For him, the election represents a test of strength, to demonstrate his size against Chile Vamos [of the traditional right], which has advantages over the Republicans due to its superior and widely known cast," says Auth, a specialist in electoral predictions.
The fifth list, that of the People's Party (PDG), is led by Parisi.
According to Auth, in this campaign both the Republicans and the People's Party will emphasize “the brand and their respective leaderships.
Vote for
Perico the palotes
because he is with Parisi;
vote for
Juan Pérez
because they are with Kast”.
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