First modification:
Chili – To draft a new Magna Carta proposal, 50 councilors are needed and more than 15.1 million citizens will choose them, so 2,932 voting centers are ready in Chile this Sunday, to start the second constituent elections in two years.
The voting centers will be open until 18:00 local time (22:00 GMT) and the first results are expected to be available a couple of hours later.
President Gabriel Boric, little involved in that election, votes in his native Punta Arenas (extreme south of Chile) and is expected to return to Santiago at noon to follow the course of the day from the La Moneda palace.
On September 4, 62% of Chileans rejected the first proposed constitutional text in a plebiscite. However, another is the scenario of participation this time.
Since the 2019 protests, Chile has held seven elections – the failure of the previous process and the unprecedented security crisis that the country is going through explain, according to experts, the disaffection towards these elections.
Opposition and ruling party divided
The ruling party competes with two different lists: one made up of the Socialist Party and the most left wing of the Government (Broad Front and Communist Party), and another made up of parties of the center-left of the ruling party plus the Christian Democracy, which is not properly opposition but neither does it integrate the Government.
The right arrives with three lists: the traditional one from Chile Vamos (UDI, RN and Evópoli), the far-right from the Republican Party and the populist from the People’s Party.
One of the keys to the day lies in the seats obtained by these last two formations, which did not participate in the elections two years ago because they were recently created and which have risen a lot in the polls, despite defending the current Magna Carta , in force since the dictatorship (1973-1990).
If the three rights get 30 seats or more, they will have full control of the constituent body and will be able to approve the rules without the need to negotiate.
The great novelty of this second attempt to renew the Constitution is the participation of 24 experts appointed by Parliament whose mission is to prepare a draft that will serve as a basis for the 50 councilors (25 men and 25 women), elected at the polls.
Another peculiarity is the existence of 12 basic principles agreed upon a priori by the parties to avoid a refounding proposal like the previous one, which include the declaration of Chile as a “social and democratic State of law”, the indivisibility of the “Chilean nation or the bicameral system.
With information from EFE
