After long negotiations, the Chilean parliamentarians finally recorded, Tuesday April 6, the postponement of the election of the Constituent Assembly to May 15 and 16. Initially scheduled for April 11 and then spread over two days, April 10 and 11, in order to smooth travel in the face of contamination risks, the ballot – which also calls on Chileans to appoint mayors, city councilors and governors – is once again adapting to the alarming health situation. “The reasons which pushed our government to promote this postponement are very solid and there are two: to take care of the health of our compatriots and to take care of the health of our democracy”, declared the president Sebastian Piñera (right), during the promulgation of the law postponing the poll, in allusion to the abstention which would have marked it.
Because the election is historic. It follows the referendum of October 2020 at the end of which the Chileans voted 79% for the writing of a new Constitution, the main achievement of the social movement against inequalities that erupted in October 2019.
The current Carta Magna, inherited from the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990), lays the foundations for the liberal state criticized by the streets. The Chileans also determined in October the composition of the body responsible for drafting the new text: it will only be newly elected citizens, and not a mixed assembly also made up of deputies. It is therefore the members of this Constituent Assembly that the voters will have to designate on May 15 and 16. “This is the most important election of the last and the next few years because it is the path that Chile has chosen to resolve the social crisis that arose in 2019”, observes Pamela Figueroa, political scientist and researcher at the University of Santiago de Chile.
Weakening of Piñera
This new compass for the country could, if two-thirds of the Assembly so decide, install the notion of the welfare state and endorse egalitarian and public access to education or healthcare. The notion of decent housing and an overhaul of the pension system, currently of private capitalization, will also be debated. Unpublished fact: the text will be drawn up by a fully joint Assembly, of which 17 of the 155 members are indigenous populations.
While the importance of the ballot and the health emergency were a consensus, parliamentary discussions stumbled in particular on possible new economic aid to the sectors most affected by the pandemic and financial support for independent candidates. According to the New Constitution Observatory research group, the independents account for 60% of the citizens in the running. MPs finally decided to suspend the campaign until April 28. This choice also implies stopping financial payments to campaigns until the same date.
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