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In Chile the constitutional reform desired by the left will be written by the right

1 year ago babelfish

Chilean stocks gained Monday morning on news of a major conservative-led political shakeup, after Sunday's vote to elect councilors to draft a new constitution saw the Chilean right emerge victorious. It has been described as an earthquake in Chilean politics: the ultra-conservative Republican party won 22 of the 50 seats on the body charged with overseeing the rewriting of the country's Pinochet-era constitution, giving it clear veto power.

Led by conservative and former presidential candidate Jose Antonio Kast, the Republican party has long opposed a drastic overhaul of Pinochet's document. The English-language mainstream media has long dismissed Kast as a “far-right radical”. Of course, if you're from the left, everyone else will appear from the right.

At the same time, the vote came as a major blow to the left, especially at a time when centre-left President Gabriel Boric limped on with a popular approval rating of around 30%. The vote to rewrite the constitution is seen as a referendum on his government.

EuroNews reports that " the preliminary count suggested that left-wing coalitions will fall short of the 21 seats needed to veto proposals or force consensus on some issues ."

Kast lost to Boric in 2021, but now promises a right turn for Chile: “Today is the first day of a better future, a new beginning for Chile ,” he said in a triumphant speech in Santiago. “ Chile has defeated a failed government “.

Left-leaning critics of the existing constitution, who led the charge for a drastic rewrite, had pushed for issues such as gender and environmental protection to be central to the proposed document, as well as issues such as indigenous rights and protections. . The media had labeled it a push towards "the most progressive constitution in the world."

For example, a year ago, as the new draft was being moved forward, The Guardian quoted progressives as follows:

María Elisa Quinteros, president of the 154-member, gender-equal assembly, will formally present the draft at a ceremony in the port city of Antofagasta on Monday afternoon.

“ It is an ecological and equal constitution with social rights at its core ,” he said in an interview.

Among the long list of rights and freedoms that the draft enshrines, the new constitution makes higher education free, ensures gender equality throughout government, and makes the state accountable for climate change prevention, adaptation and mitigation.

One social media commentator noted that the progressives' rewrite plan ultimately backfired spectacularly. The Chileans have sent them home and the constitution will be rewritten differently.

Chilean socialists attempt to rewrite the constitution

Such a flashback as to give right-wing parties a majority in parliament.
The socialists have in fact handed over the mandate to rewrite the country's constitution to a group of Pinochettists who will only partially revise the constitution. The "new vision" of the socialists was rejected in Sunday's vote. It was largely independent and left-wing voters who drafted the first tentative revision, following earlier mass protests against inequality calling for drastic reforms.

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The article In Chile the constitutional reform desired by the left will be written by the right comes from Scenari Economici .

This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/in-cile-la-riforma-costituzionale-voluta-dalla-sinistra-la-scrivera-la-destra/ on Mon, 08 May 2023 19:45:56 +0000.