See five points to understand the plebiscite of the new Constitution of Chile

The process of changing Chile’s Constitution, which began almost three years ago, is nearing its end. Voters will be called to the polls on September 4 to decide whether or not to approve the new constitutional text.

To draft the content of the new Magna Carta, Chileans elected 155 members to compose the so-called “Constitutional Convention”. Among them are 78 men and 77 women, with an average age of 45 years.

The final draft was delivered on July 4 to Chilean President Gabriel Boric by the Constitutional Convention and made available for popular reading.

1) Why a new Constitution?

The new text was written to replace the current Political Constitution of Chile, enacted in 1980 – during the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, which lasted between 1973 and 1990.

According to historian Joana Salem, a specialist in Latin America and a doctor in economic history from the University of São Paulo (USP), the current constitutional text was written by a restricted group of politicians and military personnel, including the ideologue of Pinochetism, Jaime Guzmán. .

“The freedoms of the market are the master key, or the master concept, of Chilean society. And these market freedoms override social rights, because the State, instead of guaranteeing social rights, in a universal and free way, should only act to complement, subsidize, the market”, explains Salem.

In 2020, 78% of Chileans voted in favor of drafting a new constitutional charter for the country. The referendum had been agreed a year earlier, when a wave of violent protests and intense repression spread through the streets of Chile.

According to Regiane Bressan, professor of International Relations at the Federal University of São Paulo (Unifesp), the 2019 demonstrations were mainly based on demands for “greater intervention by the State, so that the State could guarantee basic public policies for its population, and, also, a Constitution that would be updated, that could meet the current demands. In addition, greater social participation of minorities and indigenous peoples that have been preserved in the history of the country”.

Almost two years after advocating that Pinochet’s Constitution be replaced, voters will return to the polls on September 4 to approve, or not, the final draft of his new supreme law.

2) What will the referendum be like?

Voting in the constitutional plebiscite will be mandatory for all those who have an electoral domicile in Chile, and non-attendance will be subject to a fine – except for those who prove they have not voted for:

• Illness;
• Absence from the country;
• Being in a place more than 200 kilometers from where your electoral address is registered on the day of the Plebiscite;
• Another serious impediment, duly verified before the competent judge.

This will be the first mandatory vote in the country since 2012, when voting became voluntary.

According to information from the Constitutional Convention, the question asked on the day of the plebiscite will be: “Do you approve the text of the New Constitution proposed by the Constitutional Convention?” The voter must choose between the alternatives “approve” or “reject”.

In addition, the Chilean authorities are discussing the possibility of guaranteeing free public transport on voting day.

3) Rejection of the project

In the last Citizen Panel poll conducted before the referendum, 49% of respondents indicated they would vote to reject the text, while 39% assured that they would choose “approval”. In addition, 12% declared that they “do not know/will not vote”. The survey was released last Saturday (20).

When estimating the likely number of voters for the plebiscite, the survey projected that 54% leaned towards “rejection” and only 46% towards “approval”, narrowing the gap between the two options to eight points.

According to professor Regiane Bressan, one of the factors that contribute to the rejection rate is fake news that circulates among voters. According to her, the misinformation ranges from assumptions that people will lose their property to an association of “no” to the new constitutional text and the “no” given by Chileans to the continuity of the Pinochet regime in 1988.

In addition, Bressan points to the population’s discontent with Chile’s president, Gabriel Boric. About two months ago, the results of the Pulso Ciudadano survey showed a drop of 8.5 points in the approval of the current administration in relation to the previous consultation.

The Chilean leader’s approval was at 24.3% during the second half of June. Meanwhile, the president’s disapproval increased by 6.1 points, reaching 54.6%, while 19.3% did not know how to evaluate.

“Remembering that he was elected last year, but with a very small difference from the other candidate [Jeremy Hunt], who was from a more radical right. So we cannot forget that there is an important part of the population that is more conservative”, ponders Bressan.

Regarding the performance of the right in the country, Joana Salem points out that this group had “little space, they were in the minority in the Constitutional Convention. The right’s strategy is to delegitimize and discredit the Constituent Convention, saying that it was a mess, chaos, that the proposed text is amateurish, that it does not hold up”.

4) Main changes

The draft of the new Constitution is based on ten pillars that bring together “fundamental elements and the most relevant norms”, according to the convention. They are: democracy; inclusion; institutional tradition; rights guarantees; freedom; gender equality; protection of nature and the environment; regions; future projection and responsible economy.

“The idea of ​​this new Constitution is to expand the role of the State in policies that are considered fundamental – basic policies for the population”, summarizes Bressan.

The text enshrines, in an unprecedented way, constitutionally, rights for, among others, women, children and adolescents, people of indigenous peoples and nations, people with disabilities, people of gender diversity and dissidence.

In the case of indigenous peoples, the new law also provides for the formation of indigenous territorial autonomies that guarantee the exercise of autonomy rights, following the unique and indivisible character of the country.

In addition, the project provides for sexual and reproductive rights, providing “among others, the right to decide freely, autonomously and informed about one’s own body, about the exercise of sexuality, reproduction, pleasure and contraception”. Abortion would also become legal in the country.

Another important point of the proposal is the end of the Chilean Senate. Thus, “the Chamber of Deputies would be called the Congress of Deputies and Deputies, and would need to have 50% women”, explains Salem.

It is also worth mentioning the establishment of essential rights such as health, education, housing, food and access to water – which in Pinochet’s Constitution is treated as private property.

The new text also mentions the demilitarization of the police and the definition of the role of the Armed Forces exclusively in the face of external aggression.

According to Salem, the idea is to overcome the current pattern in the country of the so-called “doctrine ideology of the internal enemy”. According to the historian, the proposal of “demilitarization is the breaking of the ideology of the internal enemy, the decline of the use of instruments of war against the population of the own country and the recovery of the police as a public force”.

5) What happens after the referendum

The result of the September 4 vote will lead to one of two main paths: the approval or rejection of the new constitutional text.

If the text is approved, the Chilean president must “convene the Plenary of Congress so that, in a public and solemn act, it is promulgated and sworn or promised to respect and comply with the New Constitution”, determines the Constitutional Convention.

With the approval of this new Constitution, “Chile will be the first country to have an extremely innovative constitutional text in the aspect of parity democracy and, also, of ecology, of the realization of the climate crisis as a fundamental point”, points out Salem.

On the other hand, if the proposal is rejected, the future is less predictable. President Boric defends that, in this case, a new convention is elected, without the need to hold another plebiscite to confirm whether the people want to replace the Constitution, as in 2020.

In that case, other constituents could be elected at least 125 days after the September vote results.

Bressan points out that it is also possible that the government will try, together with Parliament, “to adopt some proposals as parliamentary amendments. So they will try, little by little, to change the Constitution through amendments”.

*With information from CNN