Chileans will head to the polls this weekend to vote for the fourth time in as many years on the future of their nation’s constitution. The referendum is testing a population increasingly exhausted by the democratic experiment – and its political swings.

The Dec. 17 vote will be the final attempt, at least under the current administration, to rewrite Chile’s dictatorship-era constitution. The effort came about following widespread protests over inequality in 2019, and a vote last September failed, in part, because of the divide over a progressive document in a deeply conservative society. 

The current iteration, however, could backtrack Chile on hard-fought human and social rights, critics say. Drafted by far-right and right-wing parties, it proposes things like offering exemptions from contributions to Chile’s pension plan and curbing the right to collective strikes. But a key change – and point of debate – centers on reproductive rights, possibly doing away with the limited access women have to abortion.  

The extreme political swing between last year’s failed draft and this weekend’s more conservative, populist version is a window into years of political turmoil in this South American nation. And the results could further entrench a divided society into political camps, making identifying a path ahead for Chile even more difficult in the future.

“People were so tired over the constitutional process even a year ago, and now I think they are angry,” says Javiera Arce, a political science doctoral student at University College London Institute of the Americas.

Esteban Felix/AP

Supporters of the proposed draft of a new constitution hold a closing campaign in Santiago, Chile, Dec. 14. Chileans have until Dec. 17 to choose whether they want a new path for the country.

Protests to constitutional conventions

In 2019, millions of Chileans took to the streets in protest following a public transportation fare hike that exposed deep dissatisfaction with cost of living, quality of life, and widespread inequality. Today, few signs of those historic demonstrations remain, except the shaping of the nation’s guiding document. 

One of the central demands of protesters was removing the charter written during Augusto Pinochet’s time in power from 1973 to 1990. That constitution enshrined neoliberal structures many demonstrators felt were at the root of social welfare and human rights struggles in present-day Chile.

To quell the protestors, the right-wing former President Sebastián Piñera agreed to hold a referendum on whether to begin a process to rewrite the charter. 

The first draft was decided by an assembly of 155 representatives, with two-thirds not part of an established political party. 

“The first process combined a demand for social change with ... a rejection of politics altogether, both left and right,” says Claudia Heiss, head of political science at Universidad de Chile’s school of government. Because there were so many independents in that first Constitutional Convention, “parties were unable to control the process,” Dr. Heiss says. 

The result was a progressive text proposing articles that would legalize abortion in all scenarios and guarantee gender parity in state institutions. It would have protected environmental and Indigenous rights for the first time in Chile’s history. 

But the draft came across as complicated and too extreme, leading 62% of voters to reject it in September last year. It was a blow to the government of leftist President Gabriel Boric, who assumed office in March 2022, and aligned itself closely with those in favor of the new constitution. 

“The left didn’t understand the political moment very well, and they made a lot of mistakes,” says María Carrasco, a public policy expert. “Chile is actually a very conservative society, and as a nation, our values are more in the center.”

Esteban Felix/AP

People against the proposed draft of a new constitution attend a closing campaign in Santiago, Chile, Dec. 14. Chileans have until Dec. 17 to decide if they will replace the current constitution, imposed by the military dictatorship 41 years ago.

“Pendulum politics”

When the first draft failed to pass, Ms. Arce, the political science student, recalls worrying what might come next. 

Today she sees her fears coming to fruition. “This new [draft], created in a democracy, is a worse constitution than what we have now,” created under a dictatorship, she says, particularly when it comes to human and reproductive rights.   

In 2017, abortion access in extreme scenarios, like when the life of a mother is at risk, became a hard-fought policy win for Chile’s feminist movement.  

Despite an estimated 75% of Chileans supporting abortion in specific circumstances, the new draft could strip these rights by protecting the life of “who” is to be born, instead of “what,” as in the current charter, observers say. It also states that a “child is understood to be any human being under 18 years of age” setting the stage for legal arguments for when life begins.

A council led by the extreme right Republican Party – which promotes populist issues such as limited immigration and taxes, and the privatization of welfare institutions – drafted the document to be voted on this weekend.

The latest data from pollster Cadem suggests that support for this draft has risen to 38%, equal to the final results of the 2022 version, underscoring Chile’s stark political and social divisions. 

“We are living in pendulum politics,” says Ms. Arce. 

“Us versus them”?

Retired teacher Maria del Pilar, who plans to vote in support of the new constitution, says she’s doing so because she’s simply exhausted by the yearslong process. It’s not a vote of support for the new text.

“It’s been too long; we’re more concerned with issues over delinquency, security, and our country’s future” than the repeated constitutional rewrites, she says.

Carlos Barria/Reuters

Chilean President Gabriel Boric, here photographed at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco in November, says he won’t push for a third rewrite of the constitution if the bid fails Sunday.

But even if this constitution is approved Sunday, the topic will continue to dominate political discourse, says analyst Danilo Herrera. “We’ll be discussing constitutional issues for the next 10 years, because, as constitutional experts have said, the text ... has technical faults, and there are more than 100 laws and regulations that would need to be modified to align with the new constitution,” he says.

But some of the public frustration isn’t concentrated in the constitutional reform process. Many see this weekend’s referendum as a vote on President Boric’s government, which has had approval ratings decline to 33% as citizens become increasingly angry with the weakening economy and mounting security issues. 

“The right and those who are in favor [of this draft] have tried to make this vote a judgment against President Boric,” says Mr. Herrera. 

There’s a growing sense across Chile, adds Dr. Heiss, “that it’s us versus them, elites against the people,” a sentiment she says could play out in the vote this weekend.

If the constitution doesn’t pass Sunday, the president has said he won’t push for a third rewrite but may try to amend the current document, as has been done a number of times in the three decades since Chile’s return to democracy. 

There may be a high level of distrust toward politics and politicians, acknowledges Ms. Carrasco, the public policy expert. But whatever happens on Sunday, she says the constitutional process shouldn’t be characterized as a failure. There was a 97% turnout for the last referendum, she says. “That for me is a win for civic engagement. ... It’s a process of learning, and the political system will have to respond in a more effective way to the problems of its citizens.”

Kifaya Al Kafarna, a housewife from Gaza City who is currently living with 27 members of her extended family in a school library in Rafah, cannot remember the last time she ate a full meal.

After weeks of struggling to find shelter amid Israeli airstrikes, Ms. Kafarna – like hundreds of thousands of others in Gaza – is facing an even more acute crisis: starvation.

“There is nothing available in the markets: no flour, no water, no food,” Ms. Kafarna says, her voice trembling with exhaustion. “I am glad we have a place to stay, but we can’t find anything to eat.”

“Half the population are starving,” United Nations World Food Program Deputy Chief Carl Skau told reporters in New York on Thursday, after visiting the Gaza Strip. “Nine out of 10 are not eating enough, not eating every day, and don’t know where their next meal is going to come from.”

With the end of the recent humanitarian pause in the fighting between Hamas and Israel, food aid is now only trickling into Gaza, U.N. officials say, and black market prices are soaring.

Ghada Abdulfattah

Tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians have crowded into makeshift tents in parts of the Gaza Strip where the Israeli army says they will be safe.

A World Food Program survey carried out during the cease-fire in late November found that 97% of households in northern Gaza and 83% of households in southern Gaza reported inadequate food consumption – one meal a day or less. It also revealed that 50% of Palestinians in northern Gaza and 33% in southern Gaza faced severe hunger.

These numbers are thought to have climbed further since the Israeli army resumed its operations on Dec. 1. Parents say they are going without food to ensure their children get half a pita bread or a bowl of boiled wheat each day.

Vanishing vegetables

The prices of what little food is left on the market are skyrocketing. Twenty-five-kilogram sacks of flour sell for $120, which is 15 times the normal price; chickens, when they can be found, cost $7 a kilo, more than twice the prewar price; and even za’atar, an affordable dried thyme and sesame mix that was once a breakfast staple in Gaza, has doubled in price.

But the rarest, most sought-after food items are fruit and vegetables.

As an ambulance rushes another bombing victim into the Al-Aqsa Hospital in the southern Gaza district of Deir al-Balah, Mohammad Al Taaban calmly sets out his vegetable stall on the street outside, lining up a few crates of green peppers, tomatoes, and lemons.

The owner of a small greenhouse farm in central Gaza, Mr. Taaban is one of the few who have vegetables for sale. A crowd instantly forms around him; his stock will not last long. In a matter of minutes he has sold out.

Ghada Abdulfattah

Customers gather at Mohammad Al Taaban's vegetable stand, one of the few places selling vegetables in the Gaza Strip.

“It is remarkable how quickly the vegetables vanish before my eyes,” Mr. Taaban says as customers eagerly sort through bell peppers. “People buy them instantly,” even though prices have risen tenfold since the war began, and few shoppers can afford to buy more than a kilo or so of produce.

Mohammed Al Qazzar walks away with a small bag of sweet peppers and tomatoes, holding it up like a prize. He says his find will be greeted with celebrations back home. It has been a week since the last time they ate vegetables.

Food shortages and hunger in Gaza are affecting all, demolishing any remaining class barriers. Mr. Qazzar’s wealthy neighbors, who once owned their own businesses, now knock on his door regularly, pleading for bread.

“This is not a normal war,” Mr. Qazzar says. “This is a war that starves you, that stresses you, and pressures you to find food, fuel, and water all day.”

That pressure is weakening law and order. “I saw it with my eyes that people in Rafah have started to decide to help themselves directly from the [aid] trucks out of total despair,” the head of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, Philippe Lazzarini, said this week. “They eat what they have taken out of the truck on the spot.”

“We have nothing”

The U.N. continues to bring in cans of tuna, high-energy biscuits, and flour through the Rafah crossing on the border with Egypt, but officials say distribution of this limited aid is complicated by Israeli government restrictions, Israeli military operations, and makeshift tents pitched in the streets by some of the million or so displaced people crowding into Rafah.

“The needs that we are meeting are really nothing,” Mr. Skau warned. “The humanitarian operation is collapsing.”

“The United Nations cannot support a population of 2.2 million people with humanitarian assistance – it is a Band-Aid,” said Lynn Hastings, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory in a virtual press briefing on Wednesday from Jerusalem. “We need to see the commercial sectors having access to bring things into Gaza. We need the markets to be open for fresh vegetables.”

Ghada Abdulfattah

Amany Al Silk's children pose in their tent outside a classroom at a public school in Rafah, southern Gaza.

Meanwhile, limited U.N. flour is being resold by recipients on the black market, and food coupons are in short supply. Kamila Abu Khader wanders the Al-Aqsa Hospital courtyard begging for spare U.N. food coupons to feed her six daughters and four sons.

Having been displaced three times, she says the food shortages and hunger are only getting worse.

Amany Al Silk says the obstacles have been growing more insurmountable each day since she was displaced from her home in the Shujaiyya neighborhood of Gaza City in late October.

She now lives with eight other people in a 60-square-foot makeshift tent pitched outside a classroom at a public school in Rafah, without electricity or water, and she spends her days roaming the neighborhood in search of food scraps and kindling.

When she finds nothing to use as fuel, Ms. Silk and her husband burn library books and the odd student notebook to cook meals. They walk miles each day to visit relatives to see if they have any spare food; today they came back with two cans of beans to feed themselves, her five children, her sister-in-law, and a niece. Yet they could not find any kindling to cook or warm them.

“In previous wars there were Israeli airstrikes, sometimes artillery shelling, but not all of this in addition to being forced out of your house and starving,” Ms. Silk says. “We have never seen a war like this.”

“My children keep asking me for dessert, for rice and milk pudding,” she says wearily, head in hand. “We have no milk. We have no rice. We have nothing.”

Elise Amendola/AP/File

Ensconced in a rocking chair, a man reads a book as he waits for his daughter’s flight to arrive at Logan International Airport in Boston in 2003.

I’m old enough to remember when air travel was a pleasure and an adventure. But I don’t recall exactly when it became an exercise in frustration. From frequently canceled flights and endless fees, to the hustle of security, cramped seating, and minimal – or absent – food service, it’s no wonder I now find the experience burdensome. 

On one such recent flight, I had a stopover at Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina. Like most airports, it housed a mad rush of travelers. But there was an inviting gloss: On the periphery of the crowded concourse the airport had placed a long row of rocking chairs. With two hours until my connecting flight, I immediately claimed one, seated myself, and began to gently rock as I observed the passing scene.

Once I was comfortably ensconced in my rocker, a fixed point in space, I was struck by how briskly everyone else was moving, a marathon race of humanity. I felt as if I were sitting on the shore of a raging river, grateful that I was not awash in the current. And so I rocked and pondered, and quietly nurtured the gratitude of a man who had been gifted an oasis of calm amid the chaos.

And then, as if the rockers weren’t enough, the second act: There was a grand piano on the other side of the concourse. An older man appeared, sat down, and began to play. His touch was so loving, so invested with feeling, that I no longer felt that I was in an airport. Rather, the pianist and I were now in the oasis together. I no longer heard the hubbub of the crowd, but only the strains of the beautiful melodies the man was conjuring from his instrument. They were old standards: “Till There Was You,” “How Great Thou Art,” “Bye Bye Blackbird,” “Louise,” “The Very Thought of You,” and on and on. But the benefit of the man’s music went beyond the lifting of my spirits. There was something larger and more magical at work.

As soon as the music commenced, the entire tone of the airport changed. People began to walk more slowly. Many paused to regard the pianist. A man put down his bags, placed his hands on his hips, and began to sway to the cascading rhythms. Now, at last, we were all in this together. I rocked, the man swayed, the pianist played, and the savage pace of modern transit slowed to something resembling a stroll in a familiar neighborhood.

I could not get enough of it. There was a tip jar on the piano, and I watched as it steadily filled with bills. I was gratified to see the number of children who made contributions. My two-hour interlude passed all too quickly, but the pianist played on. For a moment I dithered, wondering whether I should choose between my flight and more music, more rocking. But I had family waiting for me back in Maine, so I arose and approached the piano. I took out several bills and stuffed them into the jar, which was now overflowing. Borrowing a line from the movie “Jaws” (“You’re going to need a bigger boat”), I remarked, “My friend, you’re going to need a bigger tip jar. Thank you for helping me pass the time.” 

The piano player flashed me an appreciative smile. I left him reluctantly, like a man hesitant to take leave of a loved one. My flight would not prove to be a pleasure or an adventure, but the experience on the ground was both.

Sarah Matusek/The Christian Science Monitor

Craig Elmore gives a tour of his farmland in Imperial County, California, Feb. 20, 2023. The community volunteered deep cuts in water consumption under a new state plan to restore the Colorado River.

The nations of the world reached a landmark accord this week to phase out the use of fossil fuels in the next quarter century. Another hard-won response to climate change reached the same day shows how they can achieve that goal.

On Wednesday, California announced a plan to cut the amount of water it draws from the Colorado River by 1.6 million acre-feet over the next three years. That is roughly equivalent to the amount of water all of Los Angeles would consume in the same period of time – and half of the combined conservation target set by the Biden administration in May for California, Nevada, and Arizona by 2026.

The California strategy taps federal support: The administration earmarked $1.2 billion to help the three states offset the costs of drawing less water from the river. But its viability rests on a different currency. Comprising 21 separate agreements with local water board and tribal authorities, the plan is a blueprint for cooperation through shared sacrifice and trust-building.

“Less than a year ago, we faced the worst possible consequences of drought and interstate conflict,” said J.B. Hamby, chair of the Colorado River Board of California. “Today, California’s agricultural, urban, and tribal users are banding together.” He called the progress “an incredible turnaround.”

Seven states and 30 tribal nations share rights to the Colorado River under a century-old compact. More than 40 million people depend on it for water, agriculture, and hydropower. Stretching from Wyoming to Mexico, it is so overtapped that it often dries up before it reaches the sea. Hotter, drier weather patterns over the past two decades have made finding a new balance among competing users an existential concern.

Resetting that balance is about more than calculating who gets less. The California plan does do that. But some of the biggest cuts in water consumption included in the plan come through voluntary agreements with communities that once fiercely resisted making concessions. The plan also recognizes the unique role of groups such as tribal nations whose water rights were long ignored. These components reflect a deliberate effort by state water officials like Mr. Hamby to do more listening than mandating.

Humanity is adapting to climate change through a restless embrace of innovation, environmental stewardship, and cooperation. “Old ways of thinking are not going to solve new problems,” Kathryn Sorensen, director of research at Arizona State University’s Kyl Center for Water Policy, told the Los Angeles Times.

The agreements reached this week underscore how trust dissolves division when cooperation is forged through humility and selflessness.