The conservative José Antonio Kast celebrates in Santiago the victory of his party, the Republican Party, in the elections for the new Constituent Assembly in Chile Photo: EFE/Elvis González
Exactly two years ago, in May 2021, the Chilean people elected a Constituent Assembly to draft a proposal for a new Magna Load, in an election named after them, which Chileans wanted to express in a referendum in the wake of the 2019 and 2020 protests a new constitution.
The group produced a text deemed “overly progressive” that was rejected in a referendum last year.
A new constituent process began and on Sunday (7th) the left, which was victorious two years ago, was the big loser in the election of a new assembly.
The Republican Party, a rightwing party led by José Antonio Kast that was defeated by leftist Gabriel Boric in the 2021 presidential election, won 23 seats in the Constituent Assembly. The Chile Seguro coalition, which brings together centreright and rightwing parties, won 11 seats.
Soon the Conservatives will have a majority in the College. The ruling Unity for Chile coalition won only 16 seats.
The 50 voters will take office on June 7 and draft a new constitution that will go to a referendum on December 17.
A group of 24 specialists appointed by the Chilean Parliament prepares a preliminary draft that is presented to the electorate on the inauguration day, who then draft the final version for the Chilean people to vote on.
As with the referendum on the previous proposal for a new constitution, the election for the new assembly was treated as a referendum on the Boric government, which was battered by inflation, economic stagnation and the security crisis.
“Chile defeated a failed government that was unable to cope with the security, economic and social crises,” said Kast. “Chileans have overcome indolence, apathy and indifference. Chileans went to the elections to give a strong and clear signal of the direction our country should take.”
Republican Party secretarygeneral Ruth Hurtado said Monday (8) that the party intends to “prevent the radical left from further installing ideologies that only harm our country.”
She stressed that the objective was to maintain the basis of the current constitution, enacted during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (19731990), but which has undergone changes since democracy returned.
“It was what made our country grow, what managed to reduce poverty from 50% to 8%, what propelled us to go through this growing progress undermined by the October 18 criminal outbreak he said, referring to the day in 2019…when the major protests in Chile began.
In a speech, Boric admitted that the previous constituent process failed because the left did not know how to listen to other sectors of Chilean society and recommended Sunday’s winner not to follow the same path.
“The previous process, we must say, failed because we didn’t know how to listen to one another among those who thought differently. I would like to invite the Republican Party right now not to make the same mistake we made,” the president said.
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