Chile Says ‘No’ to Left-Leaning Constitution After 3 Years of Debate
By Jack Nicas, Sept. 4, 2022, NY Times
The vote on Sunday was an enormous setback for Mr. Boric, a tattooed, 36-year-old former student-protest leader who took office in March. He has quickly faced plummeting approval ratings amid rising inflation and crime. Now, instead of using a new
constitution to shift the country leftward, much of his term is likely to be mired in more political fighting about the country’s constitutional future.
Chilean voters rejected a 170-page, 388-article proposal that would have legalized abortion, mandated universal health care, required gender parity in government, given Indigenous groups greater autonomy, empowered labor unions, strengthened regulations
on mining and granted rights to nature and animals.
In total, it would've enshrined over 100 rights into Chile’s national charter, more than any other constitution in the world, including the right to housing, education, clean air, water, food, sanitation, internet access, retirement benefits, free
legal advice and care “from birth to death.”
And it would've eliminated the Senate, strengthened regional governments and allowed Chilean presidents to run for a second consecutive term.
The text included commitments to fight climate change and protect Chileans’ right to choose their own identity “in all its dimensions and manifestations, including sexual characteristics, gender identities and expressions.”
The proposal’s sweeping ambition, and decidedly leftist slant, turned off many Chileans, including many who previously had voted to replace the current text. There was widespread uncertainty about its implications and cost, some of which was fueled by
misleading information, including claims that it would have banned homeownership and that abortion would have been allowed in the 9th month of pregnancy.
Economists expected the proposed changes to cost from 9% to 14% of Chile’s $317 billion GDP. The country has long been one of the lowest relative spenders on public services among major democracies.
Many voters were particularly opposed to language that defined Chile as a “plurinational” state. That meant 11 Indigenous groups, which account for nearly 13% of the population, could have been recognized as their own nations within the country, with
their own governing structures and court systems. The proposal became a centerpiece of the campaign to reject the charter.
The five regions where the charter was most resoundingly rejected are in the south, where violent conflict between the logging industry and Indigenous activists has persisted for years.
“I feel a lot of sadness, a lot of pain,” said Elizabeth Painemal Rain, a silversmith and community leader with the Mapuche Indigenous group in Nueva Imperial, a small city in the south. “There has to be a change,” she said. “But the change is
not going to be like we wanted it to be, as it was established at the beginning.”
Many Chileans had also grown concerned about the constitutional convention that wrote the proposal, particularly its most left-wing members.
After the constitutional referendum in 2020, Chileans elected over 150 people to write the new system of rules. Independents won more than half the seats, including lawyers, academics, journalists, two actors, a dentist, a mechanic, a chess master and a
bevy of left-wing activists, including one who became famous for protesting in a Pikachu costume. Seventeen seats went to Indigenous people.
Leftists, who won over 2/3 of the seats, took full control of the process; they didn't need a single vote from conservative convention members to approve additions to the proposal.
As a result, said Ricardo Lagos, the center-left president of Chile from 2000-2006, the proposal was “extremely partisan.”
But it was the highly publicized behavior of some of the convention’s members that might have repelled Chileans even more. One constitution member was revealed to be faking a cancer diagnosis he had used in his election campaign. Another took a shower
with his camera on during a remote vote.
Patricio Fernández, a leftist writer who was a member of the convention, said he regretted that those headlines might have helped spoil a historic opportunity for his country.
“I’m far from believing that this is a perfect proposal,” he said before the vote. “But it is a democratic agreement that incorporated many voices that historically have been marginalized in Chile.”
María Eugenia Muse, 57, a health-insurance saleswoman, was leaving a polling station in a wealthy neighborhood in Santiago late Sunday afternoon with her 84-year-old mother on her arm. They both had voted to draft a new constitution in 2020 — and to
reject the proposed replacement on Sunday.
“It was a fiasco, an embarrassment what they did,” she said. “The constitution they wrote is not the constitution of Chile, of the Chilean people. It is the constitution of one group.”
Karina Guadalupe, 39, a civil-industrial engineer, was listening nearby and in visible disagreement. “We need a change,” she said, noting that next year would be the 50th anniversary of the start of the dictatorship that gave rise to the current
charter. “It’s incredible that we’re continuing with this Constitution in place.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/04/world/americas/chile-constitution-no.html
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)