By Sophie Soloway ’23
Global Editor
On Sunday, Oct. 25, 78.3 percent of Chilean citizens voted in a referendum in favor of a new national constitution. This majority decision follows a year of protests in Chile largely centered around calls for major changes to the country’s democratic process and leadership. According to The Guardian, this national vote was the first step in meeting protesters’ demands and beginning a new chapter for the country.
Helen Roane ’23, international relations major at Mount Holyoke, reflected on the referendum.“I think it is really important that Chileans have taken this step [toward] creating a more democratic government and ensuring that their voices can be heard in the future,” Roane said. “It feels especially hopeful in the context of living through the current United States election, where people are concerned about their votes counting or having their opinions heard.”
In October 2019, it was announced that metro fare prices would be raised in Chile. The announcement was immediately met with disdain from citizens who claimed that this would make public transit inaccessible to the majority of Chileans. While this planned price hike was canceled just two days after its announcement, economic protests have persisted well into 2020. Beginning with intentional turnstile-hopping and soon culminating in a declared state of emergency, these protests quickly widened to encompass the extremely high rate of wealth inequality and rising living costs in Chile.
One of the largest demands that emerged from the diverse array of protesters was that for a new constitution. The current legislation was created in 1980 under Augusto Pinochet, who is widely recognized as a dictator in the country’s history. Although changes have been made to that constitution, its relation to Pinochet’s rule holds weight in citizens’ eyes.
According to Assistant Professor of Politics Cora Fernandez Anderson, “Since 1990 with the transition to democracy, the political regime changed but most of the economic reforms were left intact. As protesters were saying these days, ‘It is not about the 30 pesos (the increase of the subway fare), it’s about the last 30 years,’ about the lack of change brought by democracy, about the increasing social injustice and inequality that democracy was not able to address.”
“The privatization of health and education done by Pinochet is still in place, and it is not surprising that students have been at the forefront of protests,” Fernandez Anderson continued.
Fernandez Anderson also spoke to the increased influence of student protests in Chile. “The student movement in Chile is very strong; [it] emerged first around 2010 and had other peaks of mobilization, and while the initial protests were about the subway fare this time, students were fast to make these protests about something bigger than an increase of the price of transportation but throw light into the structural injustices present in the country,” she explained.
In November 2019, political leaders voted to approve a public referendum on the subject of maintaining or demolishing the fraught constitution. However, the COVID-19 pandemic delayed its implementation. On Sunday, voters were finally able to vocalize their hopes for the country in the voting booths. 50.9 percent of eligible voters cast their votes, marking increased voter turnout from the most recent presidential election, according to The Guardian.
“This shows that the population has not participated actively in previous elections because of a deep crisis of representation,” Fernandez Anderson explained. “Existing parties were not giving real options, neoliberalism had been embraced by all parties and alternatives to this economic model were [off] the table. Political parties were not able to channel people’s discontent, voting turnout was low, and people found the streets as a way of expressing their frustration and their search for alternatives. The referendum and the decision to reform the constitution seems to show the political system acknowledged its crisis and is on the way to create a hopefully more legitimate political system in which people feel better represented and taken care of.”
Voters will return to the booths in April 2021, when a vote for new assembly members is scheduled to take place. Yet another referendum will be held in the first half of 2022 in order to approve or disapprove of the proposed constitution that will be written by these newly elected officials.
Fernandez Anderson noted that these votes will have a wide range of topics, including whether or not to remain a presidential system or change to a “parliamentarian or semi-parliamentarian system.” They are also considering the decentralization and regionalization of the country.
Additionally, “A big issue will be to define the relationship with the Indigenous people, mostly the Mapuche [people] who have been demanding rights for decades,” according to Fernandez Anderson. The role of the state in the economy will be another controversial issue, along with its role in guaranteeing social rights such as health, education, housing and more, Fernandez Anderson explained.
As the country awaits these upcoming elections, they also await a decision that would shape Chile’s political future. “I think this is a moment for Chile to rethink their whole political system and in the spirit of the protests push for a deepening of democracy, take advantage of this moment to put everything under scrutiny,” Fernandez Anderson said. “This is a foundational moment for this country and I hope they will take it as such.”
