Swings and extremes: Chile votes on new constitution – again

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.

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.”

“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.

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.”