Chile decided this Sunday to maintain the Constitution imposed during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet after rejecting a project drafted by a council controlled by the right and after having rejected another drafted by the left a year ago.
The “against” option obtained 55.76% of the votes, compared to 44.24% of the “for” option, almost 16 months after in another plebiscite, Chileans also rejected a draft Constitution then drafted by a convention controlled by left-wing groups.
The option of rejecting the text, which toughened the treatment of irregular migration and opened the door to reviewing the abortion law, was imposed in most of the country's sixteen regions, especially in the capital, Valparaíso (center) and the northern Atacama and Antofagasta, where there was almost 20 points of difference.
Who wins and who loses with Sunday's result and what comes after the result? Analysis.
Winners and losers after the result
Sunday's vote ended the second attempt in just fifteen months to have a new Magna Carta, a process that began in September 2022 when a resounding majority rejected in another plebiscite a project written by a leftist majority convention that proposed a profound change in the country's model.
Far from the effervescence of last year, this second process was marked by apathy and electoral fatigue, as it is the fifth constitutional vote since 2020.
(Also read: Keys that explain why Chile rejected the second proposal to change the Constitution)
While the traditional right and the right with more radical tendencies defended that the proposal took care of the problem of insecurity and put an end to the institutional uncertainty that generated the social outbreak four years ago, the left assured that the text was “dogmatic” and delved into the neoliberal model implemented during the military regime.
Thus, the result, predicted by all the polls, is a hard blow for the right-wing Republican Party, which had a fundamental weight in the drafting of the new text and aspired to become the hegemonic force of the right.
“A large majority of Chileans have rejected the constitutional proposal that we promoted. We recognize that defeat very clearly. “We failed in the effort to convince Chileans that this was a better Constitution than the current one,” indicated the leader of the Republicans and former presidential candidate, Jose Antonio Kast.
The result especially affects the presidential aspirations of José Antonio Kast, who already faced Boric in the 2021 elections. Next year Chile will experience municipal elections and, in 2025, there will be presidential elections to replace Boric.
“The right lost a great opportunity not to make the mistakes of the previous process and now mortgages the presidential figures of (right-wing mayor Evelyn) Matthei and Kast, their future instances, thinking about their destiny and presidential ambitions,” says Rodrigo Espinoza, director of the School of Public Administration of the Diego Portales University.
He is going to take advantage of this moment to promote the reforms that have been stalled
On the contrary, the result becomes a lifeline for the Boric government, hit by accusations of corruption, relatively high crime figures and with an opposition Congress.
(Also: 'Those who are irregular in Chile, we are going to kick them out,' says President Boric)
Although the opposition wanted to turn the electoral process into a plebiscite on Boric's management (“Boric votes against, Chile votes in favor,” said the Republican Party campaign), The result constitutes a bitter triumph for the left-wing ruling party, having chosen to maintain the Constitution drafted during the dictatorship. Even though sectors close to Boric have been questioning and trying to reform the Constitution promulgated in 1981 by the military regime for three decades.
“(The government) is going to take advantage of this moment to promote the reforms that have been stalled, mainly tax and pension reforms, taking advantage of this temporary advantage,” highlights the expert from the Diego Portales University.
However, according to Stéphanie Alenda, an analyst at the Faculty of Education and Social Sciences of the Andrés Bello University, “The triumph of the 'against' does not resolve at all the current problems of the government, which has many very delicate fronts, both in terms of social problems such as crime, security, order, migration, as well as internal divisions in the government itself.”
But Alenda goes much further by indicating that “the great loser (in Sunday's plebiscite) is the political class as a whole, to the extent that we have been since the social outbreak with this debate, with four years of constitutional debate, with two failed attempts to reach consensus on a text.”
The former ambassador and political scientist, Gabriel Gaspar, agrees with this, who read this second failure as “a defeat of the extremes.”
“It also shows a fluid electorate,” said the analyst, alluding to the challenges of the upcoming elections. “if the main political actors do not self-critically read their inability to build majority consensus, It is more than likely that this rift between parties and citizens will deepen even further, leaving room for the emergence of charismatic leadership. “The reconfiguration of the country's political map will rest largely on the ability of the elites to tune in to the feelings of the majorities.”
“The result can also finally be interpreted as a rejection of the entire political class as a whole, which could lead to the emergence of populist figures much more radical than what we have seen so far,” indicated Rodrigo Espinoza.
(In other news: President Boric confirms breakup with his partner Irina Karamanos: why is there controversy?)
What comes after the failure of the new text?
In an institutional speech on national radio and television, President Boric recognized that “politics has been indebted to the people of Chile” because he was unable to draft a consensus constitutional proposal. At the same time, he confirmed that he will not promote a new constituent process, because “the urgencies are different.”
“The country became polarized, divided and, apart from this overwhelming result, the constituent process failed to channel the hopes of having a new Constitution written by everyone,” said the president.
In his opinion, the priorities now must be the increase in pensions, the approval of a new fiscal pact and the return to the path of economic growth, after 2023 in which the Chilean economy showed zero growth.
“What citizens demand today is a greater capacity for dialogue, consensus, abandoning the trenches and partial positions to concentrate on providing solutions to the most pressing problems,” he stressed.
“The result of this plebiscite, more than a celebration, is a strong wake-up call. If the one who obtains the circumstantial majority tries to deny the existence of the other, we will never advance in matters that cannot continue waiting,” warned President Boric.
An analysis by the Bloomberg news agency assures that the result could provide some certainty in the short term, given that President Gabriel Boric's administration has promised not to seek a third attempt to draft a new charter. Even so, he assures that he also fuels widespread discontent with politics and represents a great disappointment for thousands of people who had taken to the streets to demand a new constitution,” So it remains to be seen how the popular sectors react.
Bloomberg also cites that political analysts view the result with concern for the country's governance. “It's a devastating blow to the political class,” said Jennifer Pribble, a political science professor at the University of Richmond.. “Chilean political parties are disconnected from large sectors of society,” argued the analyst.
(Keep reading: Why did the number of missing people managed by the Government provoke controversy in Mexico?)
What corresponds (to the government), in a practical sense, is to think about new emphases, about new people, about perhaps nuanced agendas.
And while Boric intends to put his priority on the reforms, several sectors ask him to make changes in his cabinet to face the new stage that opens after the plebiscite. The Democratic senator, Matías Walker, for example, called for “making changes in the teams. Not only the cabinet, but also on the second floor to have a second half.”
In turn, the senator and president of Renovación Nacional, Rodrigo Galilea, pointed out that “President Boric must consider a change of cabinet as soon as possible.”
“For many reasons that have nothing to do with the constitutional issue, the Government finds itself very trapped in its different agendas and in the face of this situation, what corresponds to it in a practical sense is to think about new emphases, about new people, in perhaps nuanced agendas to respond to what citizens expect,” he says.
According to analyst Espinoza, in addition to the reforms at the moment, Chile will have a great constitutional task. “The discussion on how to improve the political system is still pending, thinking that there is a high fragmentation, a high number of parties, which are elements that make governability difficult. That is a pending challenge,” he concludes.
The rejection of the new text, in figures
-Participation was 84.3%, compared to 85.8% in the previous constitutional plebiscite. held on September 4, 2022 and in which a leftist proposal was rejected.
– The number of votes cast was 12,990,000, out of a total census of 15,406,000, compared to the 13,028,739 votes cast in 2022 out of a total census of 15,173,929.
– The percentage of voters who this Sunday voted in favor of the proposal promoted by the right-wing parties was 44.24%.
– The number of citizens who presented excuses to avoid the fine for not going to vote (in Chile voting is mandatory) was around 350,000, triple that in 2022 and almost four times more than in the vote held to elect the members of the Constitutional Council, last May.
– There were 480,401 null votes, more than double that of the previous process (200,881), while the number of blank votes rose to 169,798, also more than double that of September 2022, when there were 77,340. Null and blank votes totaled 4.98% this Sunday, compared to 2.14% in September 2022.
– Of the sixteen regions into which Chile is divided, the vote in favor won in only three (Ñuble, Maule and La Araucania), while the rejection won comfortably in Atacama, Antofagasta, Valparaiso and Magallanes.
INTERNATIONAL EDITORIAL
*With AFP, Efe and El Emol (GDA)
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