Three hectic years in Chile: from massive protests to a new Constitution

What three years ago seemed like a harmless protest by schoolchildren in Chile against the increase in metro tickets ended up becoming a national interrogation on the model of society.

Chile has been on a spiral of political adrenaline since October 2019: in record time he experienced a revolt for more social rightsa plebiscite on the current Constitution, the most polarized presidential elections of the last 30 years and the drafting of a new Magna Carta.

The last stage is next Sunday’s referendum, in which 15.1 million Chileans will decide if they approve the proposal drawn up by a convention with gender equality – the first such body in the world – or if they keep the current text, inherited from the dictatorship and of a neoliberal nature.

“During the 30 years after the dictatorship there was a lot of stability, but it all vanished. This tumultuous period has made people think about the kind of society they want to live in,” Kenneth Bunker, director of the pollster, told Efe. Three fifths.

For Juan Pablo Araya, of O’Higgins State University, the kidnapping “not born by spontaneous generation” and it is explained by “a very elitist system that has failed to respond to social demands”.

“In the early terms of Bachelet and Piñera, the student protests were very important. In fact, part of the current government, including President Gabriel Boric, has forged his career on the streets,” he told Efe.

Plaza Italia, the epicenter

Symbolic border between the rich and poor neighborhoods of Santiago, the roundabout known as Plaza Italia will go down in history as the epicenter of the unrest that left thirty dead and charges against the police for human rights violations.

Three years later, the vestiges of those months are present everywhere: abandoned buildings, armored windows with aluminum and graffiti-filled walls.

“The outbreak generated a state of public disorder that has not been restored. We continued with a kind of low-intensity outbreak,” Claudia Heiss, of the University of Chile, told Efe.

Pedro Velasco (47) works in a nearby café that has been closed for months due to protests and the pandemic, and it is clear that he will not approve the new Constitution.

“I just want us to get out of it And let’s go back to what we were. We weren’t that bad, “she told Efe.

Valentina Barriga, a 23-year-old university student who has been going to the roundabout every Friday since 2019 to continue asking for free education, thinks differently: “We are one step away from building a better country”, she stressed to Efe.

In November 2019, after a night of absolute disorder, the political forces have reached an agreement – in which Boric himself played an important role when he was a deputy in the opposition to the government of Sebastián Piñera (2018-2022) – to call a plebiscite on the Constitution.

More than 78% of Chileans were inclined to change the current text and decided in October 2021 that the body in charge of drafting the new one would be a 155-member convention elected just for that job.

Heiss explained that the constitutional malaise has been dragging on since 1990, “when the transition with the Pinochet Constitution was inaugurated”, which generated “a feeling of incomplete democracy” and that “people have associated problems with institutional norms”.

uncertain outcome

Despite the initial enthusiasm, the convention was losing adherents from internal friction and various scandals that have splashed out a list of voters linked to the epidemic.

The latest polls revealed that it would prevail, with more than 10 points of difference, the possibility of rejecting the new text, which declares Chile a state of social law and enshrines fundamental rights.

However, experts point out that the result is very open because this time the vote is mandatory and there is more than 50% of the electorate who have not voted since 2012, when the suffrage became voluntary.

For Bunker, the trial “played against the convention’s ambition wanting to adjust too many aspects“.

“September 5 could be even more important than September 4 because the process will continue,” he added.

The multinational character of the state, justice or the elimination of the Senate are some of the issues contained in the text that generate more controversy, even if there is an agreement between the left forces to modify it. in case the “I approve” wins.

“Any constitutional project will leave people with a sense of bitterness because behind it there are ideological disputes about different visions of society or the way power is distributedRaúl Burgos, of the Catholic University of Valparaíso, told Efe.

The important thing, he added, “is that this dispute conforms to an essential rule of democracy: knowing how to win and knowing how to lose”.

EFE agency

PB