Where and how to download the draft of the new Constitution of Chile?

( Spanish) — Chile is at the gates of a historic plebiscite in which citizens will decide, on Sunday, September 4, whether or not to support the new text of the Constitution that seeks to replace the current Magna Carta, promulgated in 1980 during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

The final draft of the new text was delivered to President Gabriel Boric in early July, two months before the vote, and has been available to download online and read ever since.

You can get it by clicking this link or entering the page of the Constitutional Conventionthe body that drafted the text.

“An informed vote is fair for Chile” is the message that accompanies the publication of the draft on the convention page, a call for citizens to read the text before going to the polls in September. A similar online message was given by Boric upon receipt of the draft in July, when he called for the period leading up to the vote to be a “civic school for all.”

The Magna Carta proposal was prepared by the Constitutional Convention arising from the October 2020 plebiscite in which 79% of the population voted in favor of a constitutional reform.

The plebiscite, in turn, was the result of the wave of protests against the high cost of living and inequality, among other claims, that shook the South American country and the region between the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020.

The protests, which began after the announcement of the increase in the subway ticket, turned into a true social explosion in which at least 31 deaths and more than 3,700 injuries were reported, according to the National Institute of Rights of Chile.

The Constitutional Convention worked 12 months on the project, which has 388 articles organized in 11 chapters. In this way, it overcame one of the challenges that some experts warned about when the process began: that it could arrive on time and agree on a text.

According to official Web site of the Constitutional Convention, the draft is based on 10 pillars that bring together “fundamental elements and most relevant norms”. Here you can read what its main definitions are and how it differs from the current Constitution.

With information from Germán Padinger.