Constitutional Convention wrapping up
(June 24, 2022)
The Harmonization Commission of the Constitutional Convention finished its work on June 17, and the final plenary votes on the results will begin on Saturday, June 25. (CNN)
Delegates voted on the draft constitution's preamble, on a paragraph by paragraph basis, ultimately approving only the first of several proposals. The text will read: "We (nosotras y nosotros), the people of Chile, made up of various nations, freely grant ourselves this Constitution, agreed upon in a participatory, equal and democratic process." (La Bot Constituyente)
A paragraph referring to the new magna carta's origins in the social upheaval that started in 2019 received the least backing among delegates, some of whom were concerned the wording could feed into the "rejection" vote in the upcoming plebiscite. (La Bot Constituyente)
Convention delegates will present a final draft on July 4, after which the convention's work ends. Last week, delegates finished approving rules for the transition period governing the implementation of the new constitution, if it is approved in September’s referendum, reports La Bot Constituyente.
Constitution Briefs
Considerable fluctuation in polls makes it hard to predict whether voters will approve the new magna carta in the Sept. 4 referendum -- undecided voters will play a defining role, reports Bloomberg. The latest Cadem poll puts approval at 39 percent and rejection at 43 percent, with about 18 percent undecided.
Chileans will likely approve the magna carta proposed by the Constitutional Convention, according to an analysis by Moody’s, which said that a rejection would create more investor uncertainty and would leave widespread social desire for change unsatisfied. (EFE)
After a series of debates, Constitutional Convention delegates decided to invite Chile's living former presidents to the presentation of the final draft. However, all four -- Sebastián Piñera, Michelle Bachelet, Ricardo Lagos and Eduardo Frei -- said publicly they will decline to attend. (CNN, CNN)
Chileans say yes to change, and are then frightened when it actually arrives," convention delegate and public intellectual Agustín Squella said in an interview with El País.
More Chile News
Chilean President Gabriel Boric spoke out against the guest-list selection criteria for the Summit of the Americas earlier this month. The U.S. Biden administration's decision to exclude Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba from the conference was a "mistake," he said. “I have a lot of criticism of the countries that were excluded, but I prefer to say that to their faces,” Boric said during an interview at the summit. Rather than being able to press leaders of the uninvited countries on issues such as political prisoners or advance international solutions to Venezuela’s political crisis, he said, “the United States is now giving them a perfect excuse for victimization.” (Washington Post)
Boric promised sweeping social change while on the campaign trail — but faces huge challenges in negotiating with political rivals, and keeping allies on board, writes Jon Lee Anderson in a New Yorker profile of the 36-year-old former student leader.
The most recent Plaza Pública poll by Cadem put Boric's approval rating at 41 percent, the lowest of a president at this stage of mandate since 2014. -- Pauta
Boric's partner, anthropologist Irina Karamanos, will now be known as the “sociocultural coordinator of the republic’s presidency,” part of an effort to reinvent the office of the First Lady. An initial proposal to rename the "first lady's cabinet" to "Irina Karamanos' cabinet'' generated backlash from many members of the opposition, who said that the government was trying to personalize an institutional role. (Associated Press)
The CPAC Brasil earlier this month —a spinoff of the U.S. Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC)—brought together right-wing personalities and politicians from Brazil and other parts of South America. Brazilian congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro welcomed former Chilean presidential candidate José Antonio Kast and Argentine congressman Javier Milei, evidence that Jair Bolsonaro’s brand of conservatism—inspired in part by that of Trump—has reverberated across the region, writes Catherine Osborn in the Latin America Brief.
Chile’s Penuelas reservoir used to be Valparaiso’s main source of water, but drought has turned it into a huge expanse of dried and cracked earth, littered with fish skeletons and desperate animals searching for water, reports Reuters. A global shift in climate patterns sharpening natural weather cycles is behind the 13-year-drought, according to academic studies.
Efforts by Brazil, Chile and Uruguay to shift to renewable and carbon-free energy sources, along with the emergence of new lower-cost technologies, could position South America as a leading global green hydrogen supplier, writes Thomas Andrew O’Keefe at the Aula Blog.
Chile's police increased spending on its non-lethal arsenal by 23 times in its response to the 2019 protests. The growth of the arsenal had direct repercussions on protesters: 3,000 cases of human rights violations, 460 eye wounds and 34 people killed, reports El País, part of an international investigation into police repression of protests in the region.
Most stories about the Mapuches in media outlets describe acts of sabotage by small radical groups that target forestry interests or try to pressure settlers into returning lands they either purchased or acquired through concessions more than a century ago. By contrast, very little attention is paid in the media about the attempts of many other Mapuche groups to conserve natural resources, recover ancient traditions and turn tourism into a weapon against intransigent elements on both sides of the conflict, reports EFE.