Chile Constitutional Referendum, October 25th 2020

[Antonio the Sixth]

I was hoping for a shorter timetable. 5 months might be too long to sustain the popular mobilization necessary to make this a true watershed in Chilean history. And another 7 months after that to actually elect the constituent assembly puts us in completely uncharted territory. I hope I'm wrong, but I'd feel a lot better if the constituent assembly was set to be elected, say, in February or March. There's the real possibility of it ending up like Iceland's constitutional debacle a decade ago.

Still, I don't want to be a killjoy. That this is even being seriously considered is fantastic news and would have been unhoped for even a month ago.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Wow, Christian Democrats are f**king useless scum. WTF

[Antonio the Sixth]

Good week for the Latin American left.

Indeed. This is excellent news, even if not particularly surprising. Time to wipe out Pinochet's legacy once and for all.

Of course, the key will be electing a left-wing majority to the constituent assembly. What are the chances of that at the moment? And for that matter, what electoral system will be used to elect it? I'd hope it's a more genuinely proportional one than the one Chile uses to elect its regular parliament.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Good week for the Latin American left.

Indeed. This is excellent news, even if not particularly surprising. Time to wipe out Pinochet's legacy once and for all.

Of course, the key will be electing a left-wing majority to the constituent assembly. What are the chances of that at the moment? And for that matter, what electoral system will be used to elect it? I'd hope it's a more genuinely proportional one than the one Chile uses to elect its regular parliament.

I'm not a Spanish speaker, but my cursory reading of the constituent assembly election page on the Spanish Wikipedia indicates that the electoral system will be the same as the one used to elect the Chamber of Deputies, Chile's lower house of parliament:

De acuerdo al proyecto presentado por la mesa técnica el 6 de diciembre de 2019, y ratificado mediante la reforma constitucional publicada en el Diario Oficial el 24 de diciembre, en el caso de que triunfe la opción "Apruebo" en el plebiscito de octubre de 2020 y la opción ganadora en la segunda papeleta es la opción de la "Convención Constitucional" (con la totalidad de sus miembros elegidos para esta ocasión), en las elecciones de convencionales constituyentes de octubre se elegirán 155 miembros bajo las mismas reglas, distritos y cantidad de escaños que en las elecciones para la Cámara de Diputados. En el caso de que la opción triunfadora hubiese sido la de la "Convención Mixta Constitucional" (compuesta por parlamentarios en ejercicio y ciudadanos elegidos en octubre), y que resultó derrotada, esta iba a estar compuesta por 172 miembros: 86 parlamentarios elegidos por el Congreso Pleno, y 86 ciudadanos elegidos mediante las elecciones que se realizarían, con modificaciones en la cantidad de escaños asignados para cada distrito.

ughhh great

Because it makes perfect sense to elect an assembly tasked to fix a broken system using than same broken system.