Constitutional vote in Chile: victory for the independents and the alternative left

Members of the electoral commission during the count, in Chile.

AFP - RODRIGO ARANGUA

Text by: RFI Follow

2 min

The Chileans elected this weekend their Constituent Assembly, which will be responsible for rewriting the Constitution inherited from the Pinochet dictatorship.

The alternative left and the independent candidates are the big winners in the poll.

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With our correspondent in Santiago,

Justine Fontaine

Despite a lower participation than expected, the future Constituent Assembly will be more representative of

Chilean

society

.

This is the direct result of the demonstrations that erupted at the end of 2019 against social inequalities: the independents are making a significant breakthrough in the future Assembly.

The parties of the alternative left also obtain a very good score.

With the traditional left, all these elected candidates represent a little less than two-thirds of the seats in the Constituent Assembly.

On the other side of the political spectrum, the right-wing coalition in power suffers a heavy defeat and wins less than 30% of the seats, which puts it in difficulty because decisions will be taken by a two-thirds majority.

One year to write a new Constitution

It remains to be seen what alliances will be formed between the left-wing parties and the independents, but also with the elected representatives of the indigenous peoples, to whom

17 seats are reserved

.

Many have in common the rejection of the neoliberal economic model inherited from the dictatorship, and Chile could move a little closer to social democracy.

Finally, as we knew,

this Assembly will be almost perfectly equal.

And the women candidates have also obtained very good scores across the country.

Municipal and regional elections were also held this weekend.

The Constituent Assembly will take office next month, and will have a maximum of one year to

draft a new constitution

, which will then go to a referendum.

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