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“Chileans resoundingly rejected a new constitution to replace a charter imposed by the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet 41 years ago, dealing a stinging setback to President Gabriel Boric who argued the document would have ushered in a new progressive era. With 99% of the votes counted in [last] Sunday’s plebiscite, the rejection camp had 61.9% support compared to 38.1% for approval…
“The proposed document was the first in the world to be written by a convention split equally between male and female delegates, but critics said it was too long, lacked clarity and went too far in some of its measures, which included characterizing Chile as a plurinational state, establishing autonomous Indigenous territories, and prioritizing the environment and gender parity.” AP News
The right supports the result, arguing that the proposal included too many vaguely defined rights.
“Chile, the narrow sliver of a nation that hugs South America’s Pacific coast, has experienced a miracle over the last 40 years as it peacefully emerged from a dictatorship and implemented free-market policies that made it the richest country on the continent. Poverty has fallen from 45 percent to 6 percent of the population. Even if economic inequality and high living costs have triggered discontent lately, per capita income since 1990 has tripled to $24,000 a year…
“The fact that ‘Nature’ would be given rights in the [new charter], that police and a national health system would have to operate with an undefined ‘gender perspective,’ and that the government would be tasked with implementing a host of other far-reaching provisions demonstrated just how wrongheaded it was…
“The document ‘guaranteed’ over 100 fundamental rights ranging from ‘nutritionally complete’ food to ‘neurodiversity’ to separate judicial systems for indigenous peoples. Economists estimated its mandates would have increased government spending by between 9 percent and 14 percent of GDP per year. Two former left-wing presidents even spoke out against the new charter’s overreach.”
John Fund, National Review
“One would never guess from [media reports] that the so-called Pinochet constitution of 1980 has been modified repeatedly since the country returned to democracy in 1989 and bears scant resemblance to its previous authoritarian template…
“One would never guess, either, that former President Ricardo Lagos, himself a socialist, along with many other impeccably democratic political personalities, opposed this new constitution. As Mr. Lagos said, ‘we need a new constitution, but not this constitution.’ Indeed, it was precisely the opposition of such people that assured rejection of the new charter.”
Mark Falcoff, Power Line Blog
“Voter turnout exceeded 85%, the highest since the 1989 presidential contest that returned the country to democracy. The ‘reject’ option won in all 16 regions of the country, according to a report by Miguel Ángel Fernández and Eugenio Guzmán at the University of Development in Santiago. In La Araucania, the heartland of the indigenous Mapuche people, nearly 74% voted against the document. The widest margins in opposition were in the lowest-income communities in Chile…
“The message to Mr. Boric is that Chileans are mostly moderate, practical and interested in improving their standard of living. If he hopes to salvage his Presidency, he will have to respond to the public’s needs by moving to the center and recognizing interests beyond his base of left-wing urban elites.”
Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal
The left acknowledges the issues with the proposal, and argues for a new effort to draft a better alternative.
The left acknowledges the issues with the proposal, and argues for a new effort to draft a better alternative.
If the new charter were adopted, “Chile would not only become an officially ‘plurinational state’ but also would maintain a separate indigenous justice system, the rules for which were left undefined… Private water rights would be abolished in favor of revocable state-issued permits, sowing doubts for Chile’s enterprising farmers. While the drafters stopped short of moving to nationalize mining, they called for a freeze on issuing new concessions…
“Implementing this high-minded package of social bonbons would cost Chile an additional 9 to 14 percent of gross domestic product a year — as much as the yearly haul from mining… ‘The lesson here is that while people want a better safety net, to hold incumbents to account, and punishment for bad actors, they don’t want radical changes,’ said Juan Nagel, who teaches economics at Universidad de los Andes. ‘Rejecting the constitution was a vote for moderation.’”
Mac Margolis, Washington Post
“Legal constraints on electioneering sharply limited the Boric administration’s ability to sell the proposal to the public. His government’s largely agnostic, informational campaign was no match for the opposition…
“A barrage of misinformation spread through WhatsApp and social media, and outsize political donations and murky spending gave a financial advantage to the rejection campaign, which no doubt had an effect on voters. The effort was brutal, and brutally effective, in its aim to mislead Chileans to believe that the new Constitution would, among other horribles, spell the end of homeownership and allow abortions up to the moment of birth. This campaign of doubt, fear and lies cannot be discounted.”
Cristian Farias, New York Times
“There is still plenty of room for optimism in the referendum’s aftermath… The heart of the new Constitution greatly strengthens the obligations of the state to enhance labor, gender and consumer rights and to renovate the underfunded public educational system—all measures that sparked little public opposition in the run-up to the referendum vote…
“Despite the claims of the rightist opposition, the Constitution is not a socialist document—far from it. Its economic and monetary provisions didn’t spur controversy, and indeed, won the all-clear from business publications such as Bloomberg News. But putting the environment on the same plane as the economy is a radical idea—as well as a timely response to accelerating climate change… Boric will have to draw on deep reserves of political skill to orchestrate a second writing and an approval initiative that will avoid the gaffes of the September referendum campaign.”
John Dinges, The Nation
A libertarian's take
“The practice of discarding constitutions and rewriting foundational texts in Latin America helps to explain the region's constant political turmoil. An analysis by the University of Chicago Law School shows that the average lifespan of a constitution in Latin America is 12.4 years… Chileans have had three constitutions since 1833, and the 1980 constitution, while longstanding, has been heavily amended. Cuba has had four in the last 120 years. Brazil has had seven since its independence in 1822. Venezuela has had 26. The Dominican Republic has had a whopping 38…
“‘A constitution provides legal stability and predictability—like a computer operating system,’ wrote Daniel Raisbeck, a policy analyst on Latin America at the Cato Institute, and I for Reason last month. ‘Tampering with any foundational code creates security holes that are easily exploited by political opportunists looking to amplify their own power and overturn the established order.’”
Alyssa Varas, Reason
