Chile’s Constitutional Reform Effort Isn’t Over

Chile’s Constitutional Reform Effort Isn’t Over
Chilean President Gabriel Boric arrives at his office at La Moneda presidential palace in Santiago, Chile, Sept. 5, 2022 (AP photo by Matias Basualdo).

In October 2020, nearly 80 percent of Chileans voted in favor of rewriting the country’s constitution. This past weekend, over 60 percent of Chileans voted to reject the constitutional draft put forward by the Constituent Assembly that had been elected in the meantime to do so. As result, the constitution adopted in 1980 by the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet remains the law of the land—for now.

Many contextual factors played against the draft constitution, including the poor approval rating of President Gabriel Boric—who backed it—due to his handling of economic and security issues. However, this weekend’s result does not reflect a change in public opinion over the past two years regarding whether the current constitution should be reformed. The polling prior to the referendum demonstrated that a clear majority of the country still wants a new constitution, but a majority of the country also had important disagreements with the specific text of the draft delivered by the Constituent Assembly.

One critical reason for its rejection, in fact, was the growing belief in recent months that a third way could succeed. Though no official legal or constitutional path allows for a renewed constitutional rewrite after a draft has been rejected, that is almost certainly what the vast majority of Chilean society now wants. What started as a fringe movement that was dismissed by politicians in the early part of 2022 has been embraced in recent weeks by the elites of nearly every political party as they sought to keep up with public opinion.

Keep reading for free!

Get instant access to the rest of this article by submitting your email address below. You'll also get access to three articles of your choice each month and our free newsletter:

Or, Subscribe now to get full access.

Already a subscriber? Log in here .

What you’ll get with an All-Access subscription to World Politics Review:

A WPR subscription is like no other resource — it’s like having a personal curator and expert analyst of global affairs news. Subscribe now, and you’ll get:

  • Immediate and instant access to the full searchable library of tens of thousands of articles.
  • Daily articles with original analysis, written by leading topic experts, delivered to you every weekday.
  • Regular in-depth articles with deep dives into important issues and countries.
  • The Daily Review email, with our take on the day’s most important news, the latest WPR analysis, what’s on our radar, and more.
  • The Weekly Review email, with quick summaries of the week’s most important coverage, and what’s to come.
  • Completely ad-free reading.

And all of this is available to you when you subscribe today.

More World Politics Review