A man with a Chilean flag comes to the command of the Republican Party awaiting the results of the elections for the Constitutional Councils, Santiago (Chile). Elvis Gonzalez (EFE)
On June 18, 1815, French troops clashed with British, Dutch, and German troops in the city of Waterloo, Belgium. On the French side, it was Napoleon Bonaparte himself who led hostilities before the Duke of Wellington led rival forces. The result was so deadly that Wellington was able to say triumphantly, “Apart from a lost battle, there is nothing more depressing than a battle won.” Knowing the results of the election of the Constitutional Councils, in which the classic right (grouped around Renovación Nacional, the Unión Demócrata Independiente and Evópoli) competed with a serious challenger from the new radical right (the Republican Party), it is this new force one that prevailed overwhelmingly (35.42% vs. 21.07%), in an election in which 12.5 million voters cast their ballot and 2 million invalid votes were cast. As for the left, which is split into two lists (a classic syndrome on this side of the force), both coalitions barely garnered 38% of the vote to adopt the draft new constitution of September 2022 (the one voted 62nd in a referendum). % of voters). To put it bluntly, the two right-wing groups get just over 55% of the vote, an extraordinary result and particularly troubling given that it is the new radical right that is now hegemonizing behavior on this side of the political world. . .
More information
These are the electoral coordinates of the Chilean Waterloo.
It is pointless to say that these shifts in the balance of power alter the rationality of the constitutional structure, which may well be in crisis because of the impossibility of agreeing on fundamental issues between polarized forces. Well, in this right-leaning scenario, Republicans have reached such a level of power that it allows them to exercise double blackmail: on the one hand, enforce their terms in the spirit and letter of a new constitution (drafting a bespoke text to their ) and, on the other hand, coerce themselves into law to submit to his will and, on the other hand, to exercise a veto in the face of eventual convergence between the left as a whole and the traditional right that has just been defeated by his direct challenger (an unlikely scenario). In summary, the new radical right is the protagonist of the story to come, a rarity in relation to the radical right (in this sense, Chile is similar to Hungary, albeit in unparalleled elections).
Recall that the blocking minority negotiated to give effect to the Constitutional Council is 2/5, meaning that a force or group of forces that achieve three-fifths of the draft panel can enforce their terms without the more will is required. Well, it is obvious that the Republicans alone have the veto power, and they are very close to imposing their terms in the constitutional deliberation through blackmail (in the Sartori sense) of the traditional right, under penalty of the annihilation of the latter in view of the municipal elections in the next year.
In contrast, the composition of the 25-member expert committee, whose task is to propose a text of the Magna Carta to the newly elected Constitutional Council for editing: in this committee there is only one expert, who comes from the Republican Party, an imbalance with the Electoral reality so impressive that one really wonders how to correct the mismatch of numbers in the text.
Coldly speaking, the outcome of this election is not surprising as it is the result of a perfect storm. This election coincided with a public security crisis, an economic crisis with inflationary effects, a migration crisis in northern Chile and a scene of violence in the south of the country with radicalized actors from the original Mapuche people. The incursion of a radical right, still on the verge of extremism and able to use discontent in the face of a shaky government to confront these four simultaneous crises, comes as no surprise. How can we not see that hesitation from now on being fed by confusion caused by a lousy election result?
Beyond the numbers, there are some qualitative changes that cannot be lost sight of. On the one hand, it was apparently countered by the self-protection exercised by the mainstream parties by introducing incompatibilities with future popular electoral posts (those elected as city councilors could not run for mayor, senators or MPs) since the list of candidates prepared were to accept this limitation led to electoral mediocrity. Second, this election led to the extinction of the old political guard across the spectrum (particularly on the centre-left), as all candidates over 80 were defeated in the elections. Third, and as a consequence of the above, the future of Chilean politics is now at stake in generational change, an essential condition for the pursuit of survival.
After these elections it is clear to see that the constitutional change process is under threat: the Republican vote is so important that in the eyes of all leftists it must be checked whether Chile is not on the verge of conscious action to abandon this second constitutional factory process (simply “it no agreement”), which would mean that we would stay with the 1980 constitution for a long time.
Alfredo Joignant is a Chilean sociologist and political scientist