MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

New attempt to reform Chile's Constitution fails

Sunday's process “strengthens our democracy,” Boric argued

Chile voted 55.45 % against the new Constitution and thus the one passed in the early 1980s under former dictator Augusto Pinochet Ugarte will remain in force, it was reported Sunday in Santiago.

 It was the second time Chileans went to the polls to decide on a new Magna Carta after the social uprising of October 2019 which eventually catapulted Gabriel Boric Font to the La Moneda Palace. One year after the movement, more than 80% of Chileans were said to favor a new Constitution, but the first attempt was quashed in September 2022 by 62% of nay votes.

This time around, the new constitutional text was entrusted to the rightwing Republican Party, founded by former far-right presidential candidate José Antonio Kast, and other like-minded alliances. Hence, the new version was deemed too conservative.

Former president Michelle Bachelet described the text as a “step backward” for women's rights. “I always prefer something bad to something terrible,” she added.

Other social movements denounced the fact that several traditional demands, such as the democratization of access to health care, a fairer pension system and guarantees for women's reproductive rights would be left out of the new text.

Of the 50 seats on this year's constitutional council, 33 were held by right-wing groups, including 22 from Kast's party.

“Today, we have carried out a new civic journey that, beyond any result, strengthens our democracy,” said Boric after voting in Punta Arenas. “We have institutionally channeled the problems we have in society and solved them peacefully,” he insisted from his hometown 3,000 kilometers south of Santiago.