- Constituent elections have been held this weekend in Chile. Citizens have chosen 155 out of the 1,300 candidates to draft a new Constitution, which will be made public today. Political parties have failed and the independents have achieved unprecedented representation. The Constitution written under the dictatorship of Pinochet will be left behind and a new one will be drafted; it was one of the most important demands of the 2019 protests.
On 15 and 16 May, Chileans elected representatives of the Constituent Assembly. The 155 members of the Assembly should draw up the same Basic Charter, in place of the one in force. The right and the center-left have achieved fewer seats than expected, while the independents have increased more than 1,373 candidates, including actors, writers, teachers, social workers, lawyers and traditional politicians, among others. The vote was held for two days to reduce congestion, as more than 1.2 million cases of COVID-19 and 30,000 deaths have been recorded in Chile.
The candidature supported by President Sebastián Piñera has won 37 seats and is far from the 52 seats needed to influence the content of the new Constitution and veto the articles. The result is already in power and has been interpreted as a "punishment" against the right and traditional political parties. "The citizens have sent us a clear and strong message, both to the government and to all political forces: We are not adequately attuning to their demands and aspirations," said President Sebastián Piñera. "New declarations and new leaderships are being demanded. Our duty is to humbly and attentively listen to people’s message,” he added. The independents, for their part, have reached almost a third of the seats, with a total of 48.
The citizens also elected in the polls the governors, mayors and councillors of the zona.El party of the president has lost the most important municipalities and the Communist Party has taken away the mayor of Santiago de Compostela. In November the presidential elections s.Sewill be held according to the survey data, about 40% of the population voted this weekend.
A gender equity mechanism will be used in the Assembly to ensure that at least 45 per cent of women are women. In addition, seventeen of the 155 seats will be for indigenous people, since they have also wanted to take into account the ten Chilean municipalities approved by the State.
Historic elections
The Constituent Assembly has a responsibility to draft a new Constitution, as the previous Constitution was drafted in the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship in 1980. It promotes private enterprise in all sectors, such as education, health or pensions, and has an illegitimate origin for an important sector of Chilean society.
One of the main demands of the protests that erupted in October 2019 was to change the Constitución.Los citizens took to the streets to denounce the socioeconomic inequalities and to call for the implementation of social reforms in the streets. One of the demands of the protesters was the greater involvement and participation of the State in the provision of basic goods.
As for the protests, it was decided to adopt a constituent way of channeling the demands and in October 2020 most Chileans – almost 80% – were inclined to change the Constitution. The assembly will have a period of nine months to draft the new text and a new consultation will be held in 2022 to approve or reject the new constitutional text. Citizens believe that changing the Constitution is not enough, but it will bring many changes.