Chileans are called to the polls on Sunday to decide whether or not to adopt a new Constitution, of conservative inspiration, to replace the text in force since 1980 and the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet.
Left-wing Chilean President Gabriel Boric said in November that this referendum would be the last attempt to reform the Constitution.
In September 2022, a first proposal drafted by a predominantly left-wing Constituent Assembly and supported by Mr. Boric was rejected at the ballot box. It was to establish new social rights, in terms of education, health or housing, recognize the rights of indigenous peoples and even the right to abortion.
The polls, banned for two weeks, predict a large majority of rejection of the new text, despite a high number of undecided people.
The revision of the Constitution of the Pinochet era (1973-1990), considered despite several reforms as a brake on any fundamental social reform, was enacted to satisfy the social movement of 2019 against inequalities which left around thirty dead and thousands injured.
However, the text submitted to voters on Sunday was paradoxically written by those who defend Pinochet’s legacy, after the victory of the ultra-conservative right in the vote organized in May to elect the members who would form the Constitutional Council responsible for drafting a new fundamental law.
As a result, the draft Constitution retains a conservative character and “is located between the Constitution of 1980 and one more to the right than that of 1980,” Claudia Heiss, political scientist at the University of Chile, explains to AFP.
The new law, however, includes some differences on abortion, education, public security, the political system and the property tax on principal residences, the most criticized proposal because it would favor the richest.
“Dangerous proposition”
The issue of abortion is also controversial, “dangerous even”, believes Catalina Lufin, 22, president of the Federation of Students of the University of Chile, because it “takes us backwards in terms of fundamental rights”.
Abortion was completely banned in Chile until 2017 when a law authorized it, but only in cases of risk to the life of the mother, rape or a fetus declared non-viable.
The current Constitution “protects the life of those who are to be born”, but the new text proposed by the ultra-conservative right goes beyond, by making the embryo a person, thus making it more difficult to justify an abortion.
“We Republican youth make the commitment to be a pro-life generation” and “that there will be no law on abortion”, affirms the president of the Youth Movement of the Republican Party (far right) , Cristobal Garcia, 27 years old.
Without funding, the desire for “free, quality public education” disappears, fears Catalina Lufin. On the contrary, Mr. Garcia judges that “the text reinforces what works well today, such as the possibility of choosing different educational projects and the autonomy that higher education establishments can have.”
The new text, on the other hand, recognizes indigenous peoples for the first time, a long-standing aspiration of indigenous peoples, mainly Mapuche, who represent around 12% of the population, but does not respond to their demand for more autonomy.
On pensions, the text maintains the existence of two types of schemes, one public and the other private, just as for health.
On the political level, it reduces the number of parliamentarians (138 against 155) and imposes a minimum of 5% of votes (i.e. 8 deputies) for the creation of a party in order to reduce the atomization of forces within Parliament.
“It is a Constitution adapted to our times, which closes a chapter” of social upheavals, assures Fernanda Ulloa, a 24-year-old political science student and president of the Youth Movement of the Evopoli party (center right).
But Andrès Calfuqueo, a political science student of Mapuche origin, assures that it does not “represent” him. “It was born from a process that promised to unite Chileans but ended up dividing them. »