Here are the right-wing programs that won in Chile
Chile: the extreme right has obtained an absolute majority in the elections for the formation of the Convention which must rewrite the national Magna Charta. It therefore holds the power of veto which in the previous Convention was exercised by the left. The in-depth analysis of Livio Zanotti, author of Ildiavolononmuoremai
In the face of greater social tensions, more dissent from the government; in the face of less personal security, less concern for freedom, rights and solidarity. In Santiago, last night, the idea prevailed in government circles that in an epochal context that is scarcely ideologized, it is concerns about immediate problems that in the consciences of most prevail over those to come. These equations and related variables are not algebraic data, but political perceptions. However, they appear clear and coherent in yesterday's electoral outcome for the election of the 50 members of the Convention charged with drafting the new national Constitution , which will replace the one desired in 1980 by General Augusto Pinochet.
CHILE MOVES FROM LEFT TO RIGHT
In not much more than a year, the political moods of Chile's 15 million voters have shifted tumultuously from the left (which stopped at 37.4 percent) to the right (which reached 56.6 percent). And within the latter, the conservatism of the two traditional formations has clearly preferred the new extremism of the Republican Party, which has won the highest share of seats: 22 (with relative veto power, previously in the hands of the left) . Added to the other 11 seats obtained by the coalition of traditionalists ( Chile Seguro ) the conservatives secured an absolute majority. Compared to the 17 of the left headed by President Gabriel Boric, now politically in pain.
There have also been errors of assessment, both on the progressive and on the conservative front. In the centre-left, Christian Democrats, Radicals and Social Democrats who chose to stand separately did not reach the necessary quorum and their large 9 percent were completely dispersed. The same happened to more than 5 percent of the People's Party, an impromptu right-wing populist attempt. Just as the seat reserved for the representation of the original peoples will not go much beyond its symbolic value. Not at all negligible for the evaluation of the current political sentiment of the Chileans in a strictly compulsory election, the number of null ballots (16.8 percent), blank (4.5) and the 500,000 voters who justified their impossibility in advance to compete in the polls.
THE PARADOX
A double earthquake, therefore. It is a sensational paradox: since the decisive power to rewrite the Magna Carta is thus entrusted to the party that strenuously defends the existing one. Even though it has been corrected several times in a democratic sense over the past 40 years, it retains the structure desired by Augusto Pinochet: politically authoritarian and ultra-liberal in economics. Therefore a majority of Chileans had expressed the will to replace her. But the version proposed last year for popular approval was clearly wrecked in the December referendum. The same fate could befall the new version in the new popular referendum at the end of 2023. But it would certainly cause not only an institutional, but a political and social cataclysm. Nobody wishes that.
The bet therefore consists in reaching a new balance between the claims supported by the left in government (broad rights for social and ethnic minorities, sure guarantees for public health and education: therefore an inclusive and participatory state) and the conservative reactions with which the right Radical conquered the majority in the new Convention. The renovating proposals have not only met the prejudicial opposition of privileged interests and the fears of ungovernability of the moderate classes. But also the more general exasperation of the crisis caused by Covid, of the long times of the reform project, of the ancestral and now violent ownership of ancestral lands by the native Mapuches , regurgitation of organized crime.
LATIN AMERICAN REACTIONS
Most of the early Latin American comments, from Brasilia and São Paulo, to Buenos Aires, Bogota and Mexico City, express surprise and disquiet. However, he warns that in the emotional state that Chile is experiencing, no one can consider himself completely safe from the risks of further upheavals in public opinion. It is time for politics to dutifully play its part. And this is the sentiment expressed by the President of the Republic, Gabriel Boric, immediately after the outcome of the vote: “Be careful not to overlook the complexity of our country, the multiple and profound tensions that pervade it; and I hope I don't make the same mistakes as us… I claim respect for everyone for the democratic method that the government has scrupulously observed".
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/cile-vittoria-destra-costituzione/ on Tue, 09 May 2023 05:49:42 +0000.