Esteban Felix / AP
Chileans want a Constitution. But not the Pinochet one, adopted in 1980 and existing since the dictatorship. And not the new left-wing one, made up of populist aspirations. And not the right-wing one, which came out of the Pinochet era. But its own, popular, Christianly correct.
But for now, the country will not change its basic law, said Chilean President Gabriel Boric. The third attempt during his presidency has been rejected, and «pressing matters of state do not allow» to return to the issue, he said. «I want to be clear. This vote closes the constitutional process during the rest of my mandate», the president said.
Some 15.4 million voters were obliged to vote for or against the next draft of the country’s basic law this past Sunday, December 17. The compulsory voting did not arouse much enthusiasm among the people. In less than 2.5 years citizens have gotten tired of a dozen of all kinds of elections. And this is despite the fact that voting in Chile is compulsory — with all its consequences.
55.76% of voters rejected another draft of the basic law proposed by the ultra and traditional Right. A little less — 44.24% of Chileans — chose to accept it. The result was a victory for Augusto Pinochet (1973–1990) and his Chicago boys, whom for half a century Chileans have been unable to surpass by proposing something better.
And yet, the result predicted by all the polls came as a surprise to the far-right Republican Party, which played a decisive role in drafting the new text and sought to become the hegemon of the new post-Pinochet Right. «The overwhelming majority of Chileans rejected the constitutional proposal we promoted. We recognize this defeat. We failed to convince Chileans that our project is better than the current Constitution», said Republican leader and former far-right presidential candidate Jose Antonio Kast. Generally speaking, it could not have been better for him, a Pinochetist. After all, the Pinochet Constitution survived.
This is the second attempt since September 2022 to pass a new Constitution for the country. After the popular uprising of 2019, a majority of Chileans rejected the leftist project, which envisioned a radical change in the country’s socio-political and economic model. But, as in 1988, after the plebiscite «Si o No a Pinochet», it went no further than the young demonstrators jumping up and down.
Today, both left and right-wing politicians are in the same box, refusing to change the current Constitution, which the bulk of the population has already rejected. «There is nothing to celebrate», Jose Antonio Kast said in a televised speech. — «We have failed in our attempts to convince the Chilean people that the Constitution we proposed was better than the one we have now».
The young, promising, left-wing politician, «fighter for justice» and «friend of the peoples oppressed by Russian imperialism», the current president of Chile, Boric, was not in a better position. His draft of the basic law was also rejected by the majority of Chileans. After that he decided by the power given to him by the people not to tempt the constitutional fate of his temporary rule any more, but to live as they live under the Pinochet Constitution. That same Sunday night, the President of Chile declared that his government would not make a third attempt to change the Constitution. We «have other things to do».
Recall that demands to change the country’s Constitution began in 2019 after mass protests led to a national referendum in which four out of five Chileans voted to abolish the Constitution adopted under the bloody military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. And it still exists. For forty-odd years, Chileans elected to constitutional assemblies political talkers-outsiders: doctors, engineers, lawyers, farmers, social workers, and other «experts» who had drifted away from understanding the aspirations of their electors and had not come to understand the political interests of the country. And these people ended up creating long and complex legislative labyrinths, losing in each of them the predilections of one or another political party in Parliament. And the current Constitution remained highly unpopular because of its Pinochet affiliation. But this did not prevent Chile from remaining one of the most stable and prosperous countries in Latin America.
The country ranks first in the region on the UN’s Human Development Index, which is designed to measure countries in areas such as education, income and quality of life.
Boris van der Spek, a Chilean journalist, believes, «Chileans are fed up with their institutions and their politicians, so almost everything that is offered to them is rejected, whether it comes from the right or the left».
Opinion polls show that Chileans are more concerned about security and welfare issues than a new basic law.
The first proposed version of the basic law was drafted by leftist lawmakers and focused on social, gender, indigenous and environmental rights, while the second, drafted by rightists, was supposed to strengthen the country’s free-market policies and emphasize the primacy of property and religious rights.
As a result, both the first and second options failed. The «against» victory had been predicted by polls for months. And they indicated disinterest and mistrust in the process of creating a new constitution on the part of both the right and left forces in power.
Does this mean that Chile has reached an impasse? «You’ve been living under Yeltsin’s Constitution for so many years, haven’t you? Why aren’t we Chileans satisfied with Pinochet’s constitution»? — asked me my friend who had lived in exile for many years. Why indeed?
Chile’s president, as he warned, is maintaining his stance of non-interference and apparently is closing the chapter of his country’s constitutional restructuring. Boric has promised to focus on the priorities he believes the people of Chile now face: education, health care, the pension system, and the safety of residents.
His opponent José Antonio Kast, for his part, conceded defeat and announced that he has a lot to do and is already working on the next municipal elections, scheduled for next October. It looks like Pinochet and his amendments are alive and well in Chile and will remain so for a long time to come.