Hundreds of people gather in Plaza Italia in the Chilean capital Santiago de Chile. They call for further reforms and express their general displeasure with the government. They are afraid that politicians will not implement the result of last Sunday’s constitutional referendum.
A week ago the population voted on a new constitution that breaks with the economic model of the former dictator Pinochet. This was preceded by months of protests, with which the people had fought for the vote.
The dictator put the constitution to a vote in 1980. He went back to the US-trained economy, the so-called “Chicago Boys”. They turned Chile into an experimental laboratory for radical neoliberalism.
The result: many public tasks, such as education, health or pensions, have been privatized in Chile. Blocking minorities prevent anything from changing. The constitutional referendum has changed important parameters – but the demonstrators fear that the legal requirements will not be properly implemented by politicians and that nothing will change for the people in the end.
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