Chile's Constitutional Council Elections

CHILE - In Brief 08 May 2023 by Robert Funk

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Chileans voted yesterday for the fifty members of the Constitutional Council which will spend the coming months designing the constitutional proposal that will be presented to voters in a referendum on 17 December. This is the second attempt at approving a new constitution after Chileans rejected the previous draft last September. That proposal was drafted in the aftermath of the 2019 protests and the pandemic. But after 62% of the electorate rejected that text, it was clear that voters’ priorities had shifted. Thus, the new process, agreed late last year by practically all the political parties, was designed to concentrate minds and limit the scope of the constitutional exercise. A list of 12 basic and unalterable principles – including the independence of the Central Bank – was agreed, and the new process would be guided by a Committee of Experts, named by Congress, and which has been working on the initial draft since March. Now the newly elected members of the Constitutional Council must get to work. It will count on the continued contribution of the Experts, who will participate in discussions but have no vote. So far so good. The real news, however, is the breakdown of Sunday’s vote. It was, as was widely expected, a political earthquake for three reasons. First, because three and a half years after the Social Explosion and 18 months after Gabriel Boric was elected, when both Chileans and foreigners assumed that Chile had shifted far to the left, voters gave a resounding backing to the right and far right. With 22 seats, Republicanos, a relatively new far right party whose leader has embraced Bolsonarismo, has a veto on anything proposed in the Council. Republica...