(Economists have long praised the countrys stable prosperity as a miracle.). Now, as voters prepare for a referendum Sunday, many Chileans think the proposed new charter will be rejected amid frustration over the process, questions about its content and what supporters say is a surge in fake news that has confused citizens about what is actually . The other reason is that the current one was written back in 1980. } We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and This was expected because in spite of last night's rejection, polls show that Chileans don't like their Pinochet-era constitution either. The defeatwhich saw nearly 62% of voters reject the document, compared to 38% who backed itwas a political . if( inline_cta_url_425253 !='' ){ This one didn't represent us and that was clear in the vote.". One can expect a similar dynamic if US reformers embark on a similar project. if( magazine_button_text_425253 !='' ){ Last month, Chileans went to the polls resoundingly to reject a proposed new constitution for their republic, with 62% of the electorate in opposition. Chileans resoundingly rejected a new constitution to replace a charter imposed by the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet 41 years ago, dealing a stinging setback to President Gabriel Boric who argued the document would have ushered in a new progressive era. Even before 2020, antiracism scholar Ibram X. Kendi proposed an amendment that would establish and permanently fund a Department of Anti-racism that would be tasked with monitoring and preclearing all local, state, and federal public policies to ensure they wouldnt lead to racial inequality. if( magazine_text_425253 !='' ){ It is thus highly probable that Chile will face a third constitutional plebiscite in a few months. According to official figures from Chiles Servicio Electoral, the approval camp won in only eight of 346 municipalities, and even more liberal urban centers like Santiago rejected the text by 55 percent of the vote. .." In past years the propaganda has promoted the idea that merely amending the present constitution which has provided the backbone . Married couples couldn't even get divorced in Chile until 2004. But the transformational vision laid out by a constitutional convention of 154 elected members, many of them political outsiders, proved too drastic an overhaul. Almost three years of hope and optimism for change in Chile came crashing down with an overwhelming rejection of the Carta, the new draft constitution, last night. In order to comment, you must be logged in as a paid subscriber. The constitution there, adopted in 1980, is a holdover from the brutal military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, who rose to power after a US-backed coup dtat. No. Jess Rodrguez is a writer and lawyer in Washington, DC, and the publisher of Alienhood, a newsletter on law and illegality. First, anti-government protests back in 2019 nearly brought down Chile's government. All Rights Reserved. } After the constitutional referendum in 2020, Chileans elected more than 150 people to write the new system of rules. And when most countries go through such momentous political changes, they write new rules of the game, new governing guidelines, but Chile never really got around to that until now. But yesterday, voters soundly rejected the new constitution in a referendum and then celebrated in the streets of Santiago. So hopefully they keep their word., Ximena Rincn, a centrist senator who helped lead the campaign to reject the new charter, said in a speech to supporters: We have a new opportunity, and we cannot miss it.. Chile is left, for now, with the same system of laws that has its roots in the brutal dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who ruled from 1973 to 1990. The U.S. Left can learn much from this experience. magazine_button_url_425253 = 'https://subscriptions.thenation.com/Nation_index?pk=G2A1CLT'; According to the Chilean consulate, yes: 82% of Chilean voters here rejected the constitution even though the Chilean diaspora is not as conservative as, say, Cubans and Venezuelans. The emphatic rejection was an abrupt ending to a long and sometimes painful process that had promised a political revolution for this South American nation of 19 million, but instead leaves Chile deeply divided over its future. To address protesters' concerns and convince them to call off their demonstrations, Boric who was then an opposition congressman helped cut a deal to begin the long, complicated process of writing a new constitution. While nearly 80% of Chileans voted to draft a new constitution in 2020, nearly 62% of voters rejected the new text with 99.74 percent of ballot boxes counted. inline_cta_text_425253 = '

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'; tn_ptype: 'article', By Patricio Fernndez September 26,. Heres Why. Chile votes overwhelmingly to reject new, progressive constitution Read more I also suspect that, though few would openly admit it, a large number of my fellow countrymen and women are. jQuery("#magazine_button_425253 a input").css("background",magazine_button_bg_color_425253); if( inline_cta_button_text_425253 !='' ){ jQuery("#magazine_button_425253 a").attr("href",magazine_button_url_425253); inline_cta_font_color_425253 = '#000000'; After the announcement of the subway fare hike, the Chilean spring of 2019 was littered with protests. As president of the republic, I take this message with great humility, he added. Can Chiles Radical New Constitution Survive a Vote? One antidote, should Chiles reformers want to try again, would be a more representative process, one in which regular citizens have binding drafting authority and can provide more than just recommendations, she told me. Social media platforms have had an at-best imperfect approach to counteracting English-language disinformation in recent years. Clearly, these violent (and peaceful) protests were a sign of social inequality. Now, Chiles political establishment will have to decide the next steps, and it appeared that the broad rejection on Sunday had given Chiles conservatives control. The unrest ultimately left 30 dead. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. Reasons for a Defeat. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. The Boric government inherited a poor economic situation during the COVID-19 pandemic and structural limitations on government power due to Chile's neoliberal constitution. kontemplador 2 mo. Given that all the texts had to be approved by two-thirds of the Assembly, none of these extreme positions were included in them. Dom Pedro Is Embalmed Heart in Brazil for 200th Independence Day, Underwater Noise Pollution Is Disrupting Ocean LifeBut We Can Fix It, 2023 TIME USA, LLC. cta_1_check_425253 = true; Chile is debating a new constitution, to replace the one written during the country's 17-year-military dictatorship. As one of the solutions it was then proposed to write a new constitution, the old one being inherited from the dictatorial era. var magazine_button_url_425253 = ''; It would have made - it would have mandated universal health care, as well as the right to decent housing, education and pensions, and it calls for gender parity in government and legalized abortion. Claudio Reyes/Agence France-Presse Getty Images, grant more rights than any national charter before it, nationwide protests first spurred by a 4-cent hike in subway fares, put the nations Constitution up for referendum, could have been recognized as their own nations. 0. Opponents of the new constitution cheer in the streets of Santiago, Chile, on Sunday night after results showed voters rejected a proposed new constitution. "The original sin of the current constitution is that it was written during the dictatorship," said Rodrigo Espinoza, a political science professor at Diego Portales University in Santiago. We need a change, she said, noting that next year would be the 50th anniversary of the start of the dictatorship that gave rise to the current charter. Historical Amnesia About Slavery Is a Tool of White Supremacy. Seventeen seats went to Indigenous people. All this might have been overcome if there had been a greater will to come together within the Convention so that all of these episodes could have been considered just isolated incidents. Some of the constitutions most prominent critics have mooted allowing congress to reform the 1980 document or including experts in a new process, but details were light from both sides, with neither willing to commit to a possible way forward. Support our mission and help keep Vox free for all by making a financial contribution to Vox today. Or will it save its time and resources to solve other problems in the country?, Read More: Chile Is Trying To Shed the Last Remnants of Its Pinochet-Era Dictatorship. The effort to remake Chile's governing guidelines stems from a deep political crisis. Are we left instead with the consolidation of the Pinochet Constitution of 1980? Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. That's why we keep our work free. var inline_cta_bg_color_425253 = ''; Ariel Dorfman } jQuery("#magazine_button_425253").html(magazine_button_text_425253); Chiles president, Gabriel Boric, speaks to the nation on Sunday night. Boric has so much time left in his [presidential term], and there are many things to solve is the government going to put all its energy into a new process? Mara Eugenia Muse, 57, a health-insurance saleswoman, was leaving a polling station in a wealthy neighborhood in Santiago late Sunday afternoon with her 84-year-old mother on her arm. Jack Nicas, a correspondent in South America, spent the past week in Chile talking to the people who wrote the proposed constitution and those who voted on it. cta_1_check_425253 = true; Delivered Friday. The . . Pro-reform activists certainly viewed the new constitution as a symbolic turning of the page from a brutal era. Patricio FernndezTwitterPatricio Fernndez Chadwick is the founder and former editor of The Clinic and was a member of the constituent assembly charged with drafting a new constitution for Chile. That has been a constant for many years, and the social explosion of 2019 simply made it visible.. How $900,000 in direct cash giving was stolen from the poorest of the poor, Now might be a good time to consider quitting crypto, Smoky air puts everyone at risk but its worse for some, Why the SEC is cracking down on crypto and big tech companies. The process was a path forward out of Chiles 2019 estallido social (or social explosion), when a 4-cent hike on public transportation fares by the government galvanized people to take to the streets and prompted calls to mend the countrys rampant economic inequality by breaking from the free-market neoliberal economics codified in its 1980 constitution. The rechazo (rejection) campaign garnered a majority of votes among the young, among Indigenous communities, and those living in the provinces and the big citiesregardless of their gender or socioeconomic level. This is certainly a big setback, said Robert L. Tsai, a constitutional law professor at Boston University School of Law. And in July, Rep. 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