The Chileans said “no” on Sunday to the text which was to replace the one inherited from the Pinochet dictatorship. But President Gabriel Boric immediately announced his desire to relaunch “a new constitutional process”.
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It’s no. The Chileans massively rejected, on Sunday, September 4, the proposal for a new constitution which aimed to replace that inherited from the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990). The verdict of this referendum with compulsory vote is without ambiguity and exceeds all the predictions of the polling institutes. Some 61.9% of voters, or more than 7.8 million people, swiped the ballot “I reject”against 4.8 million (38.1%) in favor of the mention “I approve”, according to the final results.
However, this choice only suspends the process of a new Constitution started after the violent popular uprising of 2019 demanding more social justice, and made the one drafted under the military regime guilty of all the ills of the country.
But President Gabriel Boric immediately announced his desire to relaunch “a new constitutional process”. “I pledge to do everything in my power to build a new constitutional process”solemnly declared after the results the 36-year-old left-wing president elected last December.
From the presidential palace of La Moneda, he launched “a call to all political forces to put Chile before any legitimate divergence, and to agree as soon as possible on deadlines and outlines” of this new process “in which, of course, Parliament will have to be the main protagonist”.
Celebrating the “defeat for the refounders of Chile”Javier Macaya, president of the ultra-conservative UDI party, said at a press conference that he also wanted “to continue the constitutional process”, as the opposition had undertaken during the campaign to block the proposed text.