Chile's Electoral body reported that more than 3,300 hopefuls have applied for selection to the commission that will rewrite the country's current constitution, a legacy of dictator General Augusto Pinochet who ruled the country from 1973 to 1990.
The referendum in Chile was held on Sunday with a resounding result in favor of reforming the constitution. After last year's social protests, it was decided to consult citizens if they wanted to begin the process of promulgating a new Chilean constitution, leaving the one approved during the time of Augusto Pinochet in 1980 without effect.
Chileans will go to the polls on Sunday to vote on whether they want to swap a constitution written during the Pinochet dictatorship with a new document written by a specially elected citizens' body.
Chilean police said that on Saturday that more than 100 people were arrested after clashes marking the 47th anniversary of the coup d'etat that overthrew the populist leftist government of Salvador Allende.
Chilean lawmakers agreed on Friday to hold a referendum next April on replacing the country’s unpopular Pinochet-era constitution, bowing to demands of protesters who say the country’s decades-old social model has created deep inequality.
Chile’s embattled President Sebastian Piñera has rejected the notion of resigning and believes he will reach the end of his term in just over two years despite intense anti-government protests that are roiling the country, according to an interview with the BBC.
The United Nations' High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said Saturday she felt “sorry for Brazil,” after President Jair Bolsonaro publicly expressed his support for former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.
Thousands of demonstrators poured into the streets of Santiago de Chile on Sunday to honour the victims of General Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship, in a march that started peacefully but ended in violence.
Chile's President Sebastián Piñera Tuesday said both his predecessors Salvador Allende and Augusto Pinochet belong in the wax museum in the Las Condes area in Santiago.
For 26 years, Chilean business tycoon Carlos Cardoen has been unable to travel abroad for fear of arrest. Cardoen is accused of illegally importing the bomb-making element zirconium from the US, which added a potent incendiary effect to cluster bombs his company, Cardoen Industries, sold to Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime in the 1980s and 1990s.