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. This monthslong campaign to turn down the new Constitution gained a foothold and never slipped. And his ambitious policy agenda, which had the approval of a new Constitution as its cornerstone, was blunted early on in his tenure by the political inexperience of his cabinet, the deterioration of the economy and his administration’s failure to mediate, let alone contain, Chile’s enduring territorial conflict with Mapuche rebel groups. Boric could not bandage the convention’s self-inflicted wounds. Egged on by right-wing members of the convention and political commentators, non-Indigenous Chileans began to believe they would have fewer privileges than Indigenous people, and many residents feared they would be worse off with the convention’s expansive reimagining of Chilean society. The mandate was to draft a Constitution that would bring Chileans together instead, as details of the proposal, at 170 pages and with 388 articles, began to emerge, Chileans became only more polarized and skeptical of it. Yet from Day 1, Chile’s Constitutional Convention was mired in controversy, unforced errors and episodes that puzzled ordinary Chileans, distracting them from the serious work the body’s members were doing. In response to that pact, in 2020, nearly 80 percent of voters elected to rewrite the nation’s charter, and voters also opted to have that process led by Chileans from all walks of life. With people and public institutions on the brink, political leaders signed a pact to set in motion the process of drafting a new Constitution, which many saw as the only way to provide true and lasting safety - economic and otherwise - to all Chileans. That dynamic exploded in 2019, when a small fare hike sparked social unrest and mass uprisings unlike any other the nation had seen since its return to democracy. But the Covid pandemic, a stagnating economy, ever-increasing violence, organized crime and an influx of migrants from around the region only created more uncertainty just as the constitutional process began. Although the overwhelming rejection took many by surprise, the simplest and truest explanation for the vote is that “no” was the safer choice at a time Chileans simply don’t feel safe.įeelings of unsafety and insecurity, simmering for decades, were what drove Chileans to demand a new Constitution in the first place. Boric, said “no” to this charter - which, among other forward-looking provisions, would have enshrined a record number of rights, mandated gender parity in government institutions, prioritized the environment and declared Chile a plurinational state so that Indigenous self-rule would exist alongside the national government. Of the 13 million Chileans who headed to the polls on Sunday, a decisive 61.9 percent, including many who helped elect Mr. Boric championed from the start: a new, progressive Constitution designed to bury the one Chile inherited from Augusto Pinochet. And last Sunday, just six months into his presidency, they broke a record again, resoundingly rejecting a project Mr.
Chilean voters broke turnout records when they elected Gabriel Boric, a former student leader, as Chile’s youngest president in December.
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