Chile: the referendum on the new Constitution set for September 4
Members of the electoral commission during a vote intended to elect mayors, councilors and propose a new constitution in Chile, March 16, 2021. AFP - RODRIGO ARANGUA
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2 mins
This mandatory referendum aims to propose a new Constitution and to get rid of a remnant of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet who ruled the country for 17 years.
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The vote on the new Constitution, currently drafted by a Constituent Assembly, will finally take place on September 4, after a delay of several months.
"
The date decided for the referendum by which the new constitutional text will have to be approved or rejected is Sunday, September 4, 2022
", indicates the General Secretariat of the Presidency in a press release on Tuesday, April 5.
A date that is far from trivial for Chileans: until Augusto Pinochet
's military coup
that overthrew the socialist president Salvador Allende, inaugurating seventeen years of dictatorship (1973-1990), on September 4 was the day traditionally reserved for the presidential election.
A piece of history that takes on its full meaning today, since the vote will propose the previous Constitution, adopted in 1980 under the far-right regime of Pinochet.
►
To read also:
In Chile, unpublished criticism of the role of the military during the Pinochet dictatorship
A Constituent Assembly resulting from the fed up of the Chileans
Since July 4, 202, the Constituent Assembly, where 154 elected people sit, mostly independent citizens, unrelated to traditional political parties, writes the
new Constitution
.
After nine months of work, the Assembly voted for a three-month extension, in accordance with its statutes, which provide for a maximum period of one year.
The establishment of this Constituent Assembly, largely oriented on the left, represented a way out of the institutional crisis of the vast
social uprising of October 2019
against social inequalities which left dozens dead, shaking the economy and the political apparatus. .
The demonstrations had received the support of former student leader Gabriel Boric, since elected to the presidency, who promises to install a "
welfare state
".
He also vowed to get rid of Chile's constitutionally protected neoliberal economic model, to which the country's relative wealth is attributed, but which remains heavily criticized for its deep-rooted social inequalities.
The new text will be delivered to President Gabriel Boric on July 5 and the Chileans will have two months to analyze the text, before deciding through a referendum where voting will be compulsory.
►
To read also:
Chile: the investiture of Gabriel Boric, a new hopeful president
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Chile
Gabriel Boric