Chile's constitutional horizon bleak
Oct. 27, 2023
Chile’s new stab at constitutional reform is nearing its final phase: the elected delegates of the Constitutional Council have finished the document that will put to popular vote in a December referendum. The Council will formally finalize the text with a vote next week.
But the second attempt at reimagining the country’s magna carta is foundering: the right-wing dominated Council has imposed its political agenda on the document drafted by an appointed Expert Commission, according to the commission’s leader. (El País)
There has been an extended process of push and pull between the elected delegates and the appointed experts who provided a template to work from with “guard rails.”
Though right-wing delegates’ efforts to enshrine a right to life from conception — which would unravel the country’s hard-won right to abortion in limited circumstances — failed, they did include a clause for institutions to morally object, paving the way for entire health centers to refuse to provide the procedure. Delegates also imposed clauses recognizing families’ right to choose their children’s education, and one that orders summary expulsion of migrants who enter the country illegally.
The result is a document that many political parties from the center and center-left are squeamish about supporting, though rejecting the new proposal means defaulting to the existing, dictatorship-drafted text. The governing coalition will likely call on voters to reject the text, according to El Mostrador.
“It pains me very much to say it, because I am a professor of constitutional law. I have spent my entire professional career speaking, studying, criticizing the current Constitution, which was originated in a dictatorship, and I am ashamed to say it, but it is true: what is being outlined here is a proposal that is worse than the current Constitution, drafted in a dictatorship and is being prepared in democracy,” said María Pardo, one of the expert appointees for the governing party. (El País)
Currently half of Chile’s voters (54%) say they would reject the proposal, while 31% would approve and 15% are undecided, according to the latest Cadem poll.
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President Gabriel Boric will travel to Washington next week to meet with his U.S. counterpart, Joseph Biden, and participate in the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity Leaders’ Summit. The meeting will mark the 200 year anniversary of Chilean-U.S. diplomatic relations, and the 20 year anniversary of the free trade agreement between the two. (Forbes Chile)
Earlier this month Boric travelled to China, where he met with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping. Boric’s visit to China is significant, and demonstrates a long-term strategic commitment between the two countries beyond changing politics, wrote Francisco Urdinez and María Montt in Americas Quarterly. “Chile’s relationship with China is strategic and vital for the Chilean state, transcending government changes.”
“What I say tends to annoy people from the right and from the left. In politics, as in life, I think you have to be guided by principles. There is no way I can stay strong against the military dictatorships in Latin America in the 1970s and not say anything about what is going on in Nicaragua [now]. It is inconsistent,” President Gabriel Boric told the Washington Post.
"For me, politics is not a game of arithmetic," Chilean President Gabriel Boric told DW. "I believe that democracy, to be strengthened and to take care of itself, has to know how to respond … to the needs of our citizens."
A new Amnesty International report found that Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Chile are failing to comply with their obligations under international law to protect those fleeing Venezuela in order to safeguard their lives, integrity and human rights.
Chile’s national congress recognized the Selk’nam as one of the 11 original peoples of Chile. The Selk’nam inhabited Tierra del Fuego, until they were persecuted, tortured and slain by invading farmers in the 19th century, who rewarded anyone who killed a member of the group. About 5,000 Indigenous people were murdered in less than 50 years, with 100 survivors remaining, reports the Guardian.
The Cerro Castillo national park, created by Chile’s government seven years ago, has sent land prices in the abutting area soaring, as investors rush to create residential suburban-style lots. Lawyers for environmental groups have been battling for government oversight and enforcement, arguing that these sub-division permits were intended for dividing farmland, reports the Guardian.