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Chile has chosen this Sunday to overcome the heaviest legacy of Augusto Pinochet, the current Constitution. Citizens have accepted the offer of the political institution to initiate a constituent path to channel the discontent that exploded in the form of protest and violence just a year ago, in October 2019. 82% of the tables were scrutinized, the victory of those who voted to change the fundamental charter is overwhelming: 78%, against 22% of those who reject the idea of replacing it.
The choice of the body that will draft it was also overwhelming: the constitutional convention, made up of 155 people specially elected next April, which will be equal between men and women. This alternative reached 79% of the preferences, against 21% who chose the mixed convention, which would have been made up of 172 members, between citizens and parliamentarians. “Today citizenship and democracy and peace have triumphed over violence,” said President Sebastián Piñera tonight in La Moneda, surrounded by his entire cabinet.
It has been a day where Chile has shown its civic culture and, at night, thousands of people gather in the Plaza Italia area, at the epicenter of the concentrations in Santiago, and other cities in the interior. Although in recent years the South American country reached regional abstention records together with Colombia, high participation was expected this Sunday. The trend of the last low turnout elections – which reached a minimum of 36% in 2016 municipal elections – would have been partially reversed on this day, despite the health crisis, which this week has exceeded 500,000 total infections in Chile and it has killed 13,944 people since March. With 9,748 patients with covid-19 in the active stage, the health protocols implemented by the authorities to prevent the spread of the virus managed to convince the public to go to the polls without fear.
The Chilean movement is not led by classical institutions, such as parties and unions. Therefore, no political force could claim a triumph that, above all, was carried out by citizens.
The difference between those who approved and rejected the idea of replacing the current Constitution does not constitute, therefore, a mirror of the correlation of forces between the ruling party of the right-wing government Sebastián Piñera and the opposition. Among those who voted for a new text are also part of the voters of the right, not only of the left and the center-left, although those who opposed the change are mainly from the doctrinal right. On Monday, therefore, the real battle in Chilean politics begins with a view to the election of the 155 conventionals on April 11, in less than six months.
The ruling party seems better off than the opposition for this new stage. Although two souls coexisted in this sector until today – those who approved and rejected a new Constitution – there are the necessary agreements to arrive together in April, when mayors, councilors and, for the first time, governors are elected in parallel. regional The same is not the case with the opposition, where some of the left-wing forces –both the Communist Party and the Broad Front– have difficulties negotiating with the moderate sectors, which made up the Concertación (1990-2010). Therefore, they will hardly get a single list, which increases the chances of getting the 2/3 necessary to approve the contents of the new Constitution.
Although it would be fictitious to think that all those who approved the change to the Constitution belong to the opposition –the right wing in Chile has many voters–, the government has not stopped worrying about the political speeches of opposition leaders or the reaction of the street . In La Moneda the fear of possible revolts carried out by those who misunderstand the referendum and interpret it as a recall plebiscite against Piñera has not faded, as it has crept in in some sectors.
After the election of conventionals on April 11, no later than mid-May 2021, President Piñera must convene the installation session of the convention, whose place of operation has not yet been defined. The installation must occur within 15 days, that is, within May or early June 2021. Then, in its first session, the convention must elect a presidency and vice-presidency. From that moment, a period of nine months begins to run to draft and approve the constitutional text that must be ratified in a new plebiscite, this time of a mandatory nature. This nine-month period can be extended, once, for three months. Therefore, the new constitutional text must be finalized, at most, at the beginning of June 2022. On that date, a new president will be ruling Chile.
The images that were observed today in the streets, social networks and the media – long waits to enter the polling stations in Chile and abroad – anticipate high participation. The referendum was held in the first wave of the covid-19 still active and with a detailed sanitary protocol, so voters attended the 2,715 available locations following the recommendations. Neither the pandemic nor the violence of a week ago slowed the influx of voters.
The problem of participation
Electoral participation in Chile has declined steadily since the first presidential and parliamentary elections within the framework of the return to democracy, according to data from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). The trend increased in 2012, when voluntary voting began to rule. Participation fell from 87% in 1989 to 50% in the second presidential round of 2017, with the historical minimum of 36% in the last municipal elections of 2016. According to the UNDP, Chile also stood out for its low electoral participation compared to other countries in the region and the OECD and even if it was compared with the average participation in countries with voluntary voting (59%).
This Sunday there were anxieties to participate in a historic electoral process that seeks to channel social unrest. People respected social distance in the long lines that formed outside the polling stations and everyone wore their mask and alcohol gel. It was a quick and orderly process, where the deployment of good logistics due to the health crisis was observed. What happens this Sunday with respect to the pandemic will be key with a view to the electoral train that Chile will face between 2021 and 2022.
The tables began to be set up early – at eight in the morning in Chile – and after four hours they were fully set up, according to SERVEL. Due to the health crisis, the hours were extended and they worked for 12 hours, until eight at night. Between two and five in the afternoon, the locals received exclusively older adults, at risk from covid-19. In the morning, however, this group of the population went en masse to the polls, as is the custom. On local television they showed a 76-year-old Chilean, Rosa, who had left her home for the first time since March, when the pandemic exploded. As she suffers from hypertension and diabetes, she was wearing a plastic suit to avoid contagion.
Many young people – the generations that have starred in the protests – also came to cast their vote early. They are the ones that make up the majority of the electoral roll: 57.9% were not old enough to vote in the 1988 referendum, on the continuity of Augusto Pinochet, or had not even been born at that time. In the last presidential and parliamentary elections of 2017, the group that participated the least was those between 18 and 24 years old (35%), followed by those between 25 and 34 years old (36%). It is still necessary to know the details in detail, but it has very likely been the participation of this generation that has defined this plebiscite.
