A week after the plebiscite in Chile, polls point to the rejection of the new Constitution

First modification: 08/27/2022 – 18:28

All the polls coincide in placing the “rejection” option at the forefront of the intention to vote for September 4, with percentages that reach 56% and a distance from “approval” of between 4 and 12 points, in a plebiscite that has place three years after the biggest social protests in decades broke out in the country.

But the polls also show a large percentage of undecided (from 10 to 15%), and in the streets there is a marked citizen mobilization in favor of “approving” the text written by a Constituent Convention elected by popular vote, with gender parity and seats reserved for indigenous people.

“I vote rejection mainly because the idea of ​​creating (the new new Constitution) was born at a time of great crisis in our country; it was not a decision made objectively,” Luz Galarce, a kindergarten teacher, tells AFP.

“I think that with the way in which people demonstrated, we showed the darkest side of Chileans: destroying for the sake of destroying,” adds this 53-year-old woman who lives in downtown Santiago, the epicenter of the 2019 protests that led to the political agreement. that opened the way to a possible constitutional change.

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But Esteban Córdoba, a 40-year-old visual artist, is in favor of the new text, which in his opinion “opens a window, not yet a door, for us to become a developed nation.”

“Every Constitution must be renewed when there is a need for transformation in a country,” he says.

Compulsory voting

“The most likely event is that the rejection wins and the difference in that result depends on how many people vote and who votes,” Marcelo Mella, a political scientist at the University of Santiago, explains to AFP.

More than 15 million Chileans are entitled to go to the polls next Sunday, in the first call since 2012 in which the vote will be mandatory and with a fine for not attending.

According to the academic, the progress of the “rejection” of the new constitutional text is fundamentally due to “problems in certain contents” regarding the organization of the State, and not so much because of the catalog of rights that it establishes, “in which there is coincidence that there are a leap forward.”

The new Constitution seeks to modify the current reduced state, which prioritizes private investment, for a welfare state, with a broader battery of fundamental rights.

Among the most controversial proposals are “plurinationality”, or recognition of different indigenous nations and original peoples; the establishment of a Justice Council instead of the Judiciary, with a special indigenous justice system; and the right to abortion.

“new” campaign

Analysts explain the advantage of “rejection” due to multiple factors, including the slowdown in the economy and a very tense political environment, and a successful campaign by those who oppose the new Magna Carta.

“They have carried out a novel campaign compared to other right-wing campaigns if we consider that the rejection is basically the defense of the status quo and maintaining the Constitution” of Pinochet, says Claudia Heiss, a political scientist at the University of Chile.

In his opinion, the message was addressed to the center voter, seeking to “sow uncertainty and fear regarding the constitutional proposal”, rather than explaining its content.

For Rodrigo Espinoza, an academic at the Diego Portales University, if the new Constitution is approved in Chle, “it will set the guidelines for constitutionalism at a global level, at least in the West.”

“There are several experts and personalities from the political world who are looking at the Chilean constitutional process not necessarily with fear of what might happen here, but also to see how fundamental issues in the climate crisis and the energy crisis are going to be addressed,” he says.

The political agreement for the drafting of a new Constitution establishes that in case of rejection of the text, the current Magna Carta will continue to govern, drafted during the Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990), but reformed dozens of times after the return to democracy.

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AFP