By Sara De Witt

On 4th September, Chilean people voted to approve or to reject the draft for a new constitution. The Rejection vote achieved 61% while the Approval reached 38%. This result turned upside down all previous predictions which envisaged a very close result whichever was the winner.

This has created turmoil and disbelief in the minds of many people, especially because this was the opportunity to have a new constitution. The Pinochet constitution, written in 1980 after a military coup which overthrew President Allende’s democratically elected government, is still valid. This in spite of Chile having had several progressive governments after the end of the dictatorship, which have mainly managed the neoliberal system left by Pinochet.

On 18th October 2019 Chile saw the beginning of massive social unrest with people protesting in the streets of several cities. The police responded with tactic that violated human rights, such as shooting at the eyes of protestors, leaving hundreds partially sighted or blind. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch issued reports criticising in strong terms the way the conservative government had dealt with the protestors. Although the majority of the protests were peaceful, the police used extreme force and some protestors were killed.

This social unrest probably had its origin in the neoliberal system ingrained in Chilean society by the rich elites and their business allies with links to International markets in the 1980s. The state abdicated its responsibilities for areas such as education, health and housing. Services became a private commodity; water and sections of the sea were privatised. The pension system is also in the hands of private finance companies and the pensions paid to retired workers do not allow them to cover their basic needs.

The neoliberal economic model was very successful, increasing national productivity and bringing enormous levels of profits to the elite, while a large sector of the population live on credit or on the margins of society. Needless to say, rights of association were eroded. Many people under this system had to become self-employed or on short term contracts.

Following this social unrest, President Pinera was forced to reach an agreement with the opposition and agree to facilitate the setting up of a body to draft a new constitution. People voted on 25th October 2020 to back this option by 78% against 21.5%. The government of Pinera obstructed the body drafting the proposed new constitution. They were given only one year to work to prepare the draft, from July 2021 to July 2022.

People elected to participate in the drafting of the new constitution were elected in May 2021. There was gender equality and also representatives of the indigenous communities.

The draft new constitution was progressive, for example in environmental areas, proposing the protection of rivers and forests.  Democracy would be extended by abolishing the upper house and devolving power instead to different regions in the country, with universal health care, education and housing.

Gender parity and women’s issues were embodied in many of the proposed articles and there was a proposal to acknowledge women who provide care. There was a demand to place women’s pensions at the same level of those of men, with the same approach in relation to paid work, with women to receive the same salary as men for the same work. In the area of health, the proposal was for the state to provide quality care during the whole maternity process and also the right of abortion.

For the first time indigenous people were recognised and a plurinational state would be recognised.

Gabriel Boric, the new president, supported by a progressive coalition, was elected in December 2021 with 4.62 million votes, 55% of the vote, while the candidate representing the right received 3.75 million, 44% of the total. When nine months later, 61% voted against the proposal of new constitution, it was clear there was no correlation with previous voting results.

Since then, many reasons are being considered to understand these results. There is probably a mixture of reasons that analysts will need to study

Following changes to the voting system, voting became compulsory and 4.5 million people were added to the electoral register. People who abstained without justification would be penalised with a fine.

The majority of these people would have never voted before: many of them were young and lived in the poorest rural or city areas. The poorest areas had the highest level of Rejection for the new constitution and this was similar in areas of indigenous population.

In Chile the media is in hands of the elite and there is no room for alternative views. Since the beginning of the work for the new constitution, they initiated a campaign based on false information concerning its work and the elected people working on it, stating they were not prepared to do the work and lacked knowledge. They even made personal attacks, especially against indigenous peoples

Politicians in favour of the new constitution were hardly ever invited to participate in debates on TV or be interviewed in papers.  The majority of those invited were those against the new constitution.

Right wing politicians and their representatives used scaremongering, for example systematically telling people via formal and informal channels of communications that, if a new constitution was approved, the government would expropriate their houses and their pensions would not be paid to the families if they die. They also told people that indigenous people would have more rights than non-indigenous inhabitants and the country would be divided into several smaller countries, ending the unity of a single nation.

To facilitate discussion among the voters, drafts of the new constitution were printed and distributed for free. There is information that an unknown source also made available drafts with non-factual material aimed to scare and misinform people.

Although disinformation played an important role, there were other reasons which may have had an impact on the result. Voting No was a way to protest against the new government, over issues such as rising crime and high levels of inflation.

The draft of the new constitution had 388 articles and this may have been a long and complicated task to complete in a short space of time. Some people may have been happy with some articles of the draft and not others, for example many people may have been against the right to abortion.

Other people may not have accepted the idea of recognising the indigenous nations, since the prevalent education and culture in the country has been against accepting these diversities and emphasise the belief that Chile is one single ethnic entity. Other people may have voted against the draft since there is no proposal to nationalise the industries of copper and lithium, which are in private hands. If these natural resources were in public rather than private hands, the government would be able to offer quality services to people and have a role in developing different areas of the economy.

Analysts, politicians and social movements are trying to understand the rationale of some choices made by people. For example, there are places where all the water of the local river is used for farming, for example for the production of avocados for export. The inhabitants have no right to water which is provided in bottles for consumption by the government. Nevertheless, they rejected the proposal of a new constitution. The same occurred in areas of high levels of industrial pollution in the water and the air, with high levels of respiratory illnesses among children. The right to have a clean and safe environment was rejected.

President Gabriel Boric is having discussions with all political parties to set up a new body at some time in the future to work around a new constitution. At the same time, the government may need to develop initiatives to tackle the immediate problems which started the social unrest in 2019. However, there are already some right wing politicians arguing that, given the current crisis, especially rising inflation, it would be more appropriated to forget about a new constitution, although they are aware that changes will need to be implemented.

One of the mistakes that politicians may fall into is to consider the results of the plebiscite as the triumph of the right and defeat for the left without understanding the complexity of the situation. In spite of the results, the needs and problems of people continue and that is why they started the social unrest of October 2019.

Sara De Witt came to the U.K. from Chile in December 1976, through an accessible pathway available to those being persecuted. She studied under a programme for refugees and worked in Health and Social Care in London.

Image: c/o author.