Ten candidates for the Constituent Assembly: Aldo Valle (IND PS) from Unity for Chile; Rodrigo Delgado Mocarquer (UDI) from Chile Seguro; Karen Viviana Araya Rojas (PC) from Unity for Chile; Natalia Piergentili (PPD) from Todo por Chile; Luis Silva (PR); Lilibeth Yuvixi Huerta Cortes (PDG); Aldo Dino José Bernucci Díaz (Ind. Radical Party) from Todo por Chile; Beatrice Hevia (PR); Juan Sutil (RN) from Chile Seguro and Astrid Abarzúa Bravo (PDG).RR SS
Some 15 million Chileans will take a mandatory vote this Sunday to elect the 50 councilors who will draft the second constitutional proposal, based on a draft drawn up by a committee of experts. After the failure of the previous process – when 62% rejected the text – citizens will go to the polls under a cloud of apathy. This time there are not a thousand candidates, but 350. Many little-known faces, but supported by the political parties. Another difference from this 2022 attempt is that the pendulum appears to have swung from the left and social activism to the conservative world amid a strong sense of insecurity and electoral fatigue.
The convention will be parity between men and women and those elected will have to present a proposal that will be put to the vote in December. The outcome of this referendum marks the second half of Gabriel Boric’s government, which has been badly hit by the failure of the first. Candidates are divided into five options: three lists and two parties. Among the hundreds of citizens striving to write their country’s history, EL PAÍS has selected a dozen – two for each option – to define the next founding charter.
Aldo Valle – Unit for Chile
The Socialists sought a historical figure from Valparaíso for the competition: Aldo Valle, 67, three-time rector of the University of Valparaíso and former vice-president of the Council of Rectors of Chilean Universities (CRUCH). The lawyer is the son of railroad workers and was a leader of the port region’s socialist youth during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. He’s now running as an independent with the support of the party that’s part of the official list of unity for Chile, but he’s also a center-left sympathizer figure. Valle’s campaign banner is very critical of the current constitution and aims to guarantee the development and strengthening of public education. In 2021, he tried to enter the political world in the first election for regional governor of Valparaíso. He took third place with 20% of the votes.
The inaugural candidate Aldo Valle.RR SS
Rodrigo Delgado – Safe Chile
The 48-year-old psychologist was Minister of Interior and Security in 2020 following the social outburst during Sebastián Piñera’s government. It is the letter from the Independent Democratic Union (UDI) in the traditional right list, Chile Seguro, and appears as one of the favorites in the polls to become the constitutional councilor representing the metropolitan area. For two decades he worked in the popular community of Estación Central, a population of 200,000 that has poverty and overpopulation rates above regional and national averages. First he was director of community development and then mayor for three terms (2008-2020). His campaign speech focuses on security, the primary concern of citizens. In an interview, he distanced himself from the option of the extreme right: “In Chile, unlike the Republican Party, we Vamos have practical experience.”
The inaugural candidate Rodrigo Delgado.RR SS
Karen Araya – Unit for Chile
It is one of the Communist Party’s strong cards, from the ruling party’s Unity List for Chile, to integrate the Constitutional Convention. At 43, she is President of the College of Teachers and Professors in La Florida Municipality, Chile’s fifth-largest municipality with 400,000 residents. He has been teaching elementary school students at a municipal school for 15 years. He took to the streets during the 2011 student mobilizations, where he worked with current government spokeswoman Camila Vallejo. He switched from the Humanist Party to the Communist Party in 2015. His campaign focused on responding to the 78% of Chileans who voted in 2020 to change the constitution inherited from the dictatorship. “We have to understand that the Chilean people must demand that the historic demands be included in the new constitution,” he says.
Inaugural candidate Karen Araya Rojas.RR SS
Juan Sutil – Safe Chile
After almost three years at the head of the Confederation for Production and Commerce (CPC), the main trade union organization in Chile, Juan Sutil, 61, decided to throw himself into politics and run for the Constitutional Council. The agribusiness entrepreneur, owner of Empresas Sutil, from where he manages his wine business, nuts, berries and other frozen products, is running as an independent, backed by Renovación Nacional, the traditional centre-right party, within Chile’s Seguro Pact. He will be fighting for one of the two aldermen of the O’Higgins region, one of Chile’s most associated areas with agricultural activities and given his public prominence and role in the world privately is one of the safest cards for Sunday. With the government of Gabriel Boric, which he eyed suspiciously when he took office, the entrepreneur managed to build a relationship of mutual respect despite ideological differences.
The candidate for the inaugural Juan Sutil.CPC
Natalia Piergentili – Everything for Chile
The president of the Party for Democracy (PPD), which was founded by former President Ricardo Lagos and is part of the ruling party, has been one of the big defenders for going to this election on a different list from the other ruling parties. She is a university professor and adviser on public affairs, she is 44 years old and served as Secretary of State for Economic Affairs during the second government of Michelle Bachelet. Between 2012 and 2013 she advised on regional development, sustainability and gender equality at the National Congress. Bet on building a moderate discourse that wins the votes of the left who rejected the first constitutional proposal. The flags he raised in the campaign are the fight against poverty, decentralization, reform and modernization of the state.
The candidate for the inaugural Natalia Piergentili.RR SS
Luis Silva – Republican Party
The 44-year-old constitutional lawyer Luis Silva does not want a new constitution. “We believe that the current Magna Carta is good,” said the Republican Party candidate and confidante of the extreme right, José Antonio Kast. He holds a doctorate in law from the Universidad de Los Andes, former vice-rector of the same institute and a member of Opus Dei. Silva ran in the first constitutional process. He lost by 300 votes to Rodrigo Rojas Vade, a former congressman who invented having cancer, one of the first scandals to damage the previous congress. Openly aligning with the populist Partido de la Gente is one of the almost sure bets on the far-right option in the metropolitan area.
The candidate for the inaugural Luis Silva.RR SS
Lilibeth Huerta – People’s Party
The 33-year-old industrial engineer is one of the names in the Populist People’s Party (PDG) with clearer options. He is running in the Coquimbo region, an area where the PDG finished fourth in the 2021 general election but managed to get Víctor Pino MP. Months later, he resigned from the group. Huerta has worked on the two presidential campaigns of Franco Parisi (2013 and 2021), the leader of this new Chilean political force that is not driven by ideology. His campaign focused on defending the “right to security” and from that basis on discussing others: to property, to water and to health.
The candidate for the inaugural Lilibeth Huerta.RR SS
Aldo Bernucci – Everything for Chile
The 80-year-old lawyer is a member of the Radical Party, the oldest political group in Chile. The bank’s main card, part of centre-left Todo por Chile list, is aiming for election in the southern Ñuble region. A seasoned connoisseur of the territory, he served three consecutive terms as mayor of Chillán, the region’s capital, between 1994 and 2008. During the government of Salvador Allende he was director of the legal department of the Agrarian Reform Corporation (CORA) and in the first term Michelle Bachelet (2006-2010) was scientific attaché at the Embassy of Chile in Uruguay. In the previous constitutional process, the Radical Party received only one representative among the 155 voters, so a victory for Bernucci in this smaller council would be counted as a success for the faction.
The inaugural candidate Aldo Bernucci.RR SS
Beatriz Hevia – Republican Party
The 30-year-old lawyer from the southern US city of Osorno worked in the first presidential campaign of far-right Republican Party candidate José Antonio Kast. The legislative adviser was in charge of the Republican youth and sounds like a strong option to incorporate the future Constitutional Council representing the Los Lagos region. During the second government of Sebastián Piñera (2018-2022), she was Advisor to the Secretary of State for Economy and currently works in the international section of the Ideas Republicanas study center, dedicated to the task of proposing public policies that “promote the value of family and transcendence of People. Criticism of the previous proposal, which “compromised” traditions, seeks to defend rural identity. Convinced that Congress should have taken on the task of proposing a new text, she posits that it is the party’s duty to make Republican positions heard in the process.
The inaugural candidate Beatriz Hevia.RR SS
Astrid Abarzúa – People’s Party
She is a graduate pedagogue and chief of staff to MP Karen Medina, one of the three MPs in the People’s Party Congress, of a populist nature. At the age of 42, she is also the coordinator of her bank’s candidatures in the Biobío region, the constituency she wants to represent on the Constitutional Council. In the 2021 general election, the People’s Party was the third most popular in the region, behind Chile Vamos, a conglomerate of the traditional right. It was one of the areas where it received the most support, along with the far north, so there are more opportunities for a competitive campaign. A native of the city of Los Angeles in central Chile, her speech focused on decentralization and more economic powers for regional governors.
The constituent candidate Astrid Abarzúa.RR SS