This weekend, Chileans will return to the polls to choose the authors of a new constitutional proposal. It is the second attempt after the failed process that ended with a clear victory for the rejection option in the referendum on September 4 last year. The proposal from the Constituent Convention presented at the time was generated by a clear majority on the left, which found broad support in the context of expectations for change opened up by the social outburst of October 2019.
But the constitutional dilemma plaguing Chilean society predates the unexpected spate of unrest and violence that erupted then. Strictly speaking, without historical perspective, without emphasizing the deep traumas that this process embodies, it is difficult to understand that a country whose transition to democracy began more than three decades ago has arrived in the context of a social and political crisis the majority Believing that the heart of their main problems lies in the constitution imposed by the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. All the more so since, after more than sixty reforms, little remains of the original articles of this Constitution.
The key questions then are: Why does an important part of Chilean society continue to see the institutional legacy of the dictatorship as the root of the problems that plague them today? What is the connection between the economic and social challenges the country is facing today and a military regime that effectively ended 33 years ago?
Undoubtedly, there are different answers to these questions. But there is at least one who has systematically refused to face the vast segment that makes up the Chilean left and centre-left party. It is the one associated with the pain and frustration of not being able to overthrow the Pinochet dictatorship; having fought on all fronts for many years, only to finally be forced to accept a harsh reality: the Constitution and the economic model imposed by the military would not be eliminated through protests and social mobilization; The only way to get Pinochet out of government was to conform to the rules of the game and institutional timetable set by the dictatorship itself.
The opposition won the referendum on October 5, 1988; Establishing this political and electoral majority was a huge victory for the opposition forces. But that was not the feat they had dreamed of during their long years of fighting the regime. Rather, the referendum of 1988 was achieved precisely because the dictatorship could not be overthrown and this had very complex consequences for the fate of the transition. This implied, among other things, the continuity of the constitution and the economic model, the existence of appointed senators and commanders-in-chief of the armed forces who cannot be removed by the civil authority. Also the existence of the binomial voting system and a harsh reminder of that frustrated fall: Pinochet would remain chief of the army for eight more years after leaving government, only to later serve as a life senator. A living symbol of all that his opponents had to give up when accepting an agreed transition within their opponents’ rules of the game.
This white-hot sea of pain and frustration has never left the soul of the Chilean left and center-left party. It stayed there, like a deep rift during the Concertación’s years in power, between 1990 and 2010. It nurtured a critical and self-flagellation spirit that contaminated the government’s own assessment of its achievements and its deficits. Until 2010, when the Chilean right finally came to power in democratic elections and the apparent consensus that had enabled the Chilean transition began to crumble.
Since the right has become a viable alternative form of government, polarization has not stopped growing. The centre-left party distanced itself from its own legacy and embraced new founding theses centered on constitutional change. An agenda imposed since the October 2019 social outburst as a privileged framework to trace the deep divisions that have run through Chilean society for decades. Political and ideological break, but also socio-cultural break, which had its dramatic climax in the military coup of 1973; that seemed to diminish in power during the Concertación years, but reemerged with power when the political forces that supported Pinochet during his regime returned to power.
However, the Chileans are not resigned. This Sunday, May 7th, they return to the polls and seek the path to a constitutional consensus. Minimal rules of the game that can begin to rebuild a political order that has been painfully broken by the imponderables of recent history.
Max Kolodro He is a Chilean sociologist and holds a PhD in philosophy.