The reviled Pinochet Constitution will continue to rule Chile’s destiny after its citizens, specifically 55.76% of the votes, opted for the Against option, i.e. to reject the second draft of the law of laws that was intended to replace the one approved under the dictator’s aegis, and extensively reformed in 1989 and 2005.
After President Gabriel Boric’s electoral triumph, the urgent task his allies set about was to form a Constitutional Convention that would produce a text radically different from the one drafted under Augusto Pinochet’s rule. What came out of that motley gathering of old and new leftists, dubbed the Constitution of the 22nd century by some, and unacceptable monstrosity by others, was a constitutional project that was dubbed by some the Constitution of the 22nd century. The truth is that, submitted to the judgement of the people, it was overwhelmingly rejected by them in 2022, forcing President Boric to initiate a new constituent process.
In May 2023, a new Convention was formed, in which mainly conservative forces took root, with two complementary leaders: José Antonio Kast and Evelyn Matthei. The former, in particular, put all his efforts into demonstrating that Chile is a country of order and disciplined progress, so that his strategy was to assimilate the possible triumph in the acceptance of the new constitutional text to a defeat of both Boric and the conglomerate of left-wing forces that support him. The president decided to act as such and showed himself throughout the campaign as an impartial witness to what the people decided, although he could not avoid the temptation to show some disagreement, which was tantamount to considering that the Palacio de la Moneda was aligned Against.
With the defeat of the For option, i.e. the one that the head of the opposition, José Antonio Kast, had opted for, the first voices have already emerged calling for a reconfiguration of the opposition’s hierarchical order. No one, except the Communist Party and some of its allies, dares to call for another new Constitutional Convention immediatelyThe two failed experiences of 2022 and 2023 leave things as they were in 2019 for the time being, that is, with the old Pinochet Constitution in force.
Of course, in these four years of so much identity debate, which has not been free of heated episodes, the Chilean political class has forgotten to address the real concerns of the Chilean people, whose major problems have not only not been solved, but have suffered a serious deterioration. Crime and especially organised crime have taken advantage of these four years of political laxity to establish a firm foothold in the country, which has also suffered a heavy influx of immigrants, especially Venezuelans fleeing the Chavista paradise, and which has caused serious social destabilisation in the country.
The large demonstrations and serious disturbances that embittered Sebastián Piñera’s last term in office, and which were supposed to be solved as if by magic with a change of constitutional regime, have not happened so far. The problems remain unresolved or have become even worse: economic stagnation; financial bankruptcy of private health care and absolute shortages in public health care; inadequate and inadequate university education; pensions whose purchasing power is clearly outstripped by inflation; and, finally, a brutal increase in poverty, which is expressed in a landscape where homelessness is spreading not only in the big cities, but even in rural areas, which are also subject to the misfortune of a severe and prolonged drought and its consequent plagues.
Boric assures us that he will put another new draft constitution on hold for the time being. Presumably he and the rest of the political class will spend their time trying to solve the pressing problems facing Chileans.
