Carlos Figueroa Ibarra
In October 2019, Chile aroused enormous hopes among the progressive part of the entire world. On the 25th of that month, 1.2 million people came out to demonstrate against neoliberalism in Santiago and more than 3 million did so throughout the country. A year later, in October 2020, approximately seven million Chileans came out to vote to approve and reject the call for a constituent assembly. 79% of the voters voted yes to the call and also because the body that wrote it was a fully elected convention without the presence of the political class.
In May 2021, municipal and constituent elections were held for the Constitutional Convention, which was to draft a new constitution for the country. Independent candidates won 48 seats and were the first majority. The pro-government right of “Chile Vamos” suffered a severe defeat by obtaining 37 seats and was unable to obtain the third part of the same that it needed to veto constitutional changes. The Concertación parties (DC, PS, PPD, Radical) that for years ruled neoliberal Chile were also defeated. The pact I approve Dignity made up of the Communist Party and the unified left in the Broad Front, it won 28 seats.
The independents united to the left organized in parties gathered approximately 50% of the seats, to which the 17 obtained by the original peoples joined. In sum, 90 seats out of the total of 155 (almost 60%). The victorious spirit was overshadowed in November 2021 with the victory in the first round of the neo-fascist José Antonio Kast with 28% of the votes, although said spirit returned in December of that year when the progressive Gabriel Boric triumphed in the second round of the elections presidential with 55% of the votes.
The following year, the right was able to reconstitute itself and achieved a landslide victory in September 2022 because 62% of voters rejected the very progressive constitution that the Constitutional Convention had drafted. Winning percentages from 2020 and 2022 were down to 38%. The feats of 2019-2021 culminated in a painful defeat.
The cause of this triumph of the Chilean right was probably due to the fact that, having passed the most terrible moment of the pandemic, 4 million more people came out to vote, showing a result that was more in line with the reality of the correlation of forces between the right, left and center left. A reactionary campaign with more money, with the support of the mass media and effective use of social networks succeeded in its objective of demonizing the new Constitution.
This Sunday, May 7, 2023, the right has achieved one more victory in the election of the 50 members of the Constitutional Council. What is new about this election day is that the ultra-right of the neo-fascist Republican Party José Antonio Kast has been the great winner, winning 23 seats while the right of the Chile Seguro Alliance only obtained 11 seats. While the Constitutional Convention elected in 2021 had 155 members, this one now only has 50. The right-wing triumphed by reducing the number of constituents.
The right and the ultra-right will join 34 seats out of 50, and by having more than three fifths of them, they will be able to modify by themselves a new constitutional text pre-prepared by a council of experts handpicked by parliament. Progressivism, on the contrary, by obtaining only 16 seats, will not be able to gather the two fifths that it would need to be able to veto a constitutional proposal that was regressive. In fact, the right aspires to present a constitution that would be the same, but with modifications, as the one that was approved during the Pinochet era.
As in the 2022 vote, there was a change in the composition of the voter profile thanks to the incorporation of new voters. Voted 78% of the 15 million registered Chileans and there were more than two million invalid votes and five hundred thousand blank ones. In addition to this fact, the growing wear and tear of Gabriel Boric may be gravitating to defeat. What is worrying about this situation is that this victory leaves Kast with a clear path to achieve a presidential victory in the next elections of 2025. As it is, Chile has given us a bath of cold water to those of us whose hopes were born with the revolt of 2019.
Source The Time
