Last week, Chile’s constitutional council officially handed President Gabriel Boric a draft constitution that will be put to plebiscite on Dec. 17. “Chileans must decide if this is a proposal that unifies us,” said Boric. (El País)
Polls show most voters plan to reject the proposed text, though the gap has narrowed in recent weeks, reports Reuters. If the new charter is rejected, the Pinochet-era constitution will remain in effect. (See Oct. 27’s Chile Update)
Boric's government, which backed the first proposal, said it will not push for a third constitutional rewrite if voters reject this draft. The government has promised to remain neutral in the debate over the new proposed text although several of the administration's allies have already said they oppose the new document, reports the Associated Press.
The ruling Frente Amplio, Democracia Cristiana, the Partido Radical, the Socialist party and former president Ricardo Lagos, have all called for rejecting the draft. (BioBio, El País, El País, El País)
The draft was headed by the far-right Republican Party, which had, in fact, opposed reforming the country’s dictatorship-era magna carta, reports the Guardian. The new proposal is on the opposite end of the political spectrum to the draft rejected by voters a year ago, which was heralded as the world’s most progressive constitutional proposal.
The Council worked off of an expert-drafted suggested text, but made significant changes, reports El País. While they preserved the novel consecration of a social and democratic state of law, left wing councillors say the other articles effectively made this definition “empty,” because they limited social rights such as health, education and pensions.
“One of the most controversial articles in the proposed new document says that “the law protects the life of the unborn,” with a slight change in wording from the current document that some have warned could make abortion fully illegal” in Chile, reports the Associated Press. Abortions are currently legal in the case of rape, fetal inviability and risk to the mother’s life.
On migration, the final text also proposes the expulsion “in the shortest possible time frame” of migrants who enter through unauthorized avenues, “with full respect for human dignity, fundamental rights and guarantees and the international obligations [of] the state of Chile.” (El País)