Chile rejects new progressive constitution

Chileans overwhelmingly voted against a proposed new progressive constitution on Sunday.

The new constitution, which would have been one of the world’s most progressive charters, was rejected by 62% of voters with 99.74 percent of ballot boxes counted.

Nearly 13 million of 15 million Chileans and residents who were eligible to vote cast ballots across more than 3,000 voting centers.

These included the national stadium in Santiago, where Rosemarie Williamson, 54, and her mother, 85, voted to reject the new constitution.

Karol Cariola, spokeswoman for the approval campaign, conceded defeat late on Sunday night in downtown Santiago but said the mandate to draft a new text remains in force.

“We are committed to creating conditions to channel that popular will and the path that leads us to a new constitution,” Cariola said.

President Gabriel Boric, whose government is largely tied to the new text, said cabinet changes were coming and the government would work to draft another constitution.

“We have to listen to the voice of the people. Not just today, but the last intense years we’ve lived through,” Boric said. “That anger is latent, and we can’t ignore it.”

The president said he would work with congress and different sectors of society to draft another text with lessons from Sunday’s rejection.

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Center-left and right wing parties that promoted the reject campaign, have also agreed to negotiate to prepare a new text.

“I think there are two things that explain what has just happened. One is a rejection of the Boric government,” political analyst Cristobal Bellolio told said, adding that the other was identity politics in regards to indigenous and other issues.

The proposed text that voters rejected was a response to widespread violent protests that gripped the nation in late 2019 and focused on social rights, the environment, gender parity and indigenous rights, a sharp shift from its market-friendly constitution dating back to the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship.

Williamson, who had voted ‘yes’ in 2020, cited worries over several proposals.

“The main one is (indigenous) plurinationality and then pension funds,” she said. “I’ve worked my whole life and I’m not willing to share that.”

The latest polls before a two-week blackout showed rejectors ahead at 47%, compared with 38% for ‘yes’ and 17% undecided, but Sundays result beat polls by wide margin.

Zainab Sa’id