MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Fewer Chileans would reject new Constitution; still not enough

If the new text is rejected, the government would still push for a new Constitution as per the people's mandate from Oct. 25, 2020, Vallejo explained

A new survey released Sunday in Santiago showed that the number of Chileans who would approve the new Constitution is on the rise against the rejection group, while President Gabriel Boric Font's approval rating has slightly from a slump just a few months after his inauguration.

The latest version of Cadem's Public Square Survey also detected some 74% would support the drafting of yet a new Consitution in case the new text fails to make it past the Spet. 4 plebiscite, something Boric said he would promote if necessary.

So far, 52% -one percentage point below last week's results- those consulted said they would reject the document drafter to replace the 1980 version passed under the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, while 37% - or two points up from the previous survey- would approve it.

Regarding emotions, 58% of Chileans said a new Constitution was for them a cause for concern or fear, while 39% said that it brought on hope. The remaining 3% did not know or did not answer this question.

Boric's approval rating moved up to 38%, while 58% of those surveyed were unhappy with the current government.

Cadem's survey stemmed from responses given by 702 people nationwide aged 18 through the telephone between July 13 and July 15.

Regarding the possibility of launching another Constitutional Assembly in case Rejection wins, Government Minister Camila Vallejo recalled that Boric's voters had entrusted him with giving Chile a new Constitution, due to which the head of state must “comply with the popular mandate of October 25, where the citizenry was extremely clear in expressing the need for a new Constitution.”

If that came to be the case, “what we have to do is to implement the proposal for a new Constitution,” albeit “with improvements, with refinements, with some reforms in which we have been open and available to push,” Vallejo said.

“The right thing to do is, by democratic principle, to call for a new constituent process,” the Communist minister insisted. She added the Boric administration would have to do things “from the point of view of what the majority of citizens established on October 25, 2020”.