Chile Constitutional Referendum, October 25th 2020

[seb_pard]

After 1 month of protests, Chile is going to have a constitutional referendum in April 2020. Honestly, I can't hide my happiness, because it's something that many Chileans have been craving for years.

The referendum will have two questions:
1. Do you want a new constitution? Yes/No
2. How do you want the constitution to be drafted? Constitutional Convention (aka Constitutional Assembly)/Mix Convention (mix of congressional representatives and other people elected in a special election).

If approved, there is going to be an election (in November I think) to elect the assembly members, there is still unknown too much about this process, but for sure this assembly will work for 9 months, with an extension of 3.
Any article in the constitution will require 2/3 of the assembly. It is a tabula rasa.

[ilikeverin]

What are the concerns raised to trigger the new convention?

[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.

[Lumine]

We have our first polls (Cadem and Activa Research). It's fairly safe to asume there will be an overwhelming triumph for the YES side (perhaps even like in the 1989 Constitutional Reform Referendum, in which YES won with 91%), and I would be shocked if NO managed to obtain more than 25%.

Logic would dictate the 100% elected Constitutional Convention will also win easily, though it appears the Mixed alternative does have some degree of support. I'd bet for 65 to 70% in favor of the first option being the end result.

Cadem:

In General:

Do you support the political accord?
YES 67% / NO 28%

Presidential Approval:
17% / 77%

Referendum:

Should the Constitution be changed?
YES 82% / NO 16%

And via which mechanism?
Constitutional Convention 60% / Mixed Constitutional Convention 35%

Will you vote on the referendum?
YES 78% / NO 7%

Activa Research:

In General:
Will changing the Constitution help solve the crisis?
YES 65% / NO 15%

Do you support the political accord?
YES 58% / NO 15%

Presidential Approval:
10% / 85%

Referendum:

Should the Constitution be changed?
YES 81% / NO 8%

And via which mechanism?
Constitutional Convention 64% / Mixed Constitutional Convention 24%

Will you vote on the referendum?
YES 78% / NO 7%

[Lumine]

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.

The Electoral Service needs time to conduct a proper process and the Constitution itself must be amended via Congress in order to have an actual binding referendum, hence the delay. Although a YES victory appears the more than obvious outcome, there still needs to be a serious campaign and a proper environment to conduct the referendum without violence (and to ensure a 100% legitimate and transparent result), so if anything it is the responsible choice. Plus, it may (emphasis in may) allow for the political climate to be just a bit less poisonous than it is right now, which wouldn't be a bad thing.

I do agree that the elections for delegates have been pushed back too far, and that will probably turn out to be a mistake. Reasonable as the accord is, it would have made far more sense to hold them earlier indeed.

[warandwar]

How did Pinera manage to hit 10%? Got the impression that it was more like .00001%...

Anyways, congrats to the Chilean people. Are there any details about how the Assembly elections will take place (partisan or not?)? 

[seb_pard]

How did Pinera manage to hit 10%? Got the impression that it was more like .00001%...

Anyways, congrats to the Chilean people. Are there any details about how the Assembly elections will take place (partisan or not?)?  

He still has some support, specially among the upper class, also, many people from the right don't care about politics and they are in the "peace" camp (like: no more violence, choose peace), but most of them they don't care about the protests (or human rights violations), they just want everything go back the way it was before (impossible right now), but as I told you, they are mostly from the upper class, (eg. many friends or former friends of mine). In addition,  there are some people (few but still) that still believe this is a sabotage from Venezuela.

About the details oft he assembly, we still don't know.

[kaoras]

Well, a lot has happened in the last few months.

The constituent convention would be elected with the same electoral system as the Chamber of Deputies. (Open list PR which is a spectacular mess). It would also have 155 members elected in the same existing constituencies. In the case of a mixed convention, it would have 172 members, 86 current parliamentarians and 86 newly elected members in the same existing constituencies but each one electing fewer representatives (generally half of the normal)

The impeachment of Piñera failed to the shock of no one. It was closer than I was expecting though.

There has been a lot of debate about giving the constituent convention reserved seats for Indigenous people (they are near 10% of the population), 50/50 parity between men and women and to allow independent lists to run. The law currently approved doesn't have any of this because of strong resistance from UDI. The opposition, however, pushed for this as an add-on law and got RN and EVOPOLI on board (they don't have the votes to approve it themselves), passing it in the lower chamber. This led to a huge s**storm among the right, with UDI freezing its participation in Chile Vamos and claiming they are "the only right-wing party left" and that they are defending the people who voted for Piñera (Nevermind that all of these things have overwhelming support according to polls, with even the right showing a majority in favor). All these things are still up in the air.

The leftist Broad Front has also had a lot of crisis, with many parties leaving the coalition over the signing of the Constitutional Accord, including the Ecologist (PEV), Humanist (PH) and Equality (PI) parties, which had 4 deputies between them.

The Radical Party (PR) also had a crisis with 3 of its 8 deputies leaving because the party attempted to impose disciplinary measures on them for voting against Piñera impeachment. They have joined the DC caucus.

The ex-New Majority parties have been MIA but they recently launched two separates campaigns for the Yes option in the plebiscite. One by PR-PS-PPD (they technically have had a new coalition called Convergencia Progresista for a while, but no one remembers that, not even themselves a lot of the time) and another one by the Christian Democrats (DC) led by 81 years old Carmen Frei. The DC claims that they want nothing to do with the Communist Pary (which also supports a Yes vote) but Carmen Frei said that she will speak with the Communist leader so...

The No option is being defended by the Republican Party of the Jose Antonio Kast (JAK, being a Pinochetist, is, in the end, the ultimate defender of the pinochetist status quo, so its populist appeal will be always limited, fortunately) and is almost sure that the UDI will also defend that. RN seems deeply divided.

The Piñera government remains languishing in its infinite incompetence, with approvals stuck on 10%. Piñera has been engaged in a series of pathetic attempts trying to show that the protests were some kind of foreign intervention (usually being rebated by the Public Ministry). The culmination of this was the release of a "Big Data"-""""intelligence"""" report that among other things, claimed that K-POP was a major factor in the protests (I WISH I WAS KIDDING, but you can look it up). This was met which such ridicule that the government now claims it doesn't have anything to do with it, it didn't order it, nor did they pay for it (despite announcing it which much fanfare...).

There also been some controversy about the intendente (governor) of the Metropolitan Region and its attempts to maintain the public order, but I honestly can't be bothered to explain it. The opposition will try to impeach him, and will probably fail because the recent burning of the Police's Institutional Church will scare them (Yeah, remember my "Precarious instability" prediction? We are exactly in the middle of that, waiting for March...)

[kaoras]

So, the right has reached an agreement among themselves on the issues of parity between women and men, reserved seats for indigenous peoples and independents lists.

-On parity between women and men: There will be closed list per districts and they will have to be zipper lists. I'm personally ok with this but the thing is that Chileans have NEVER, in any kind of elections, voted for closed lists (i.e, directly for a political party), it was always for a candidate. People usually say that they vote according to the person, independent of a political party (that is just kinda true since most people still vote according to ideology). Given that political parties are the one institution that polls worse than Piñera I don't think many people are going to like this.

-On reserved seats for Indigenous peoples: There will be a special roll for indigenous voters (those recognized by the National Indigenous Corporation) that voters can opt-in (Kinda New Zealand I think?) If they do so, they will only be able to vote for the indigenous seats. The number of seats will be proportional between the indigenous roll and national roll and the seats will be taken from 155 or 172 seats of the convention, so the electoral districts' magnitudes will have to be adjusted by the electoral service. The vote will be a nationwide district with ¿Open List PR I think? (the redaction isn't very clear).

I don't think this will fly, mainly because it doesn't assure the representation of all indigenous peoples. With a nationwide district, there may be only Mapuche representatives elected. Also, I can assure you, registering at the CONADI isn't something that most people that qualify do. Well, in fact, there lies a very complicated debate about who counts as indigenous. Those who still live in traditional communities? (who ARE registered at the CONADI in the majority of cases but are a small fraction)  Those who have indigenous last names (CONADI actual criteria)? All people who identifies as belonging to them as in the census (and where the 10% figure comes from)?.

-On Independent's list: They will support the project approved by the Opposition and RN-EVOPOLI.

These days the University selection test (PSU) is being held and there has been a lot of protests that had caused the cancelation of the PSU in many precincts, affecting 14% of students. Protesters claim that the test is unfair (there's actually a lot of scientific evidence that points that the PSU isn't very good and not very predictive at measuring actual performance in the university) but I can't say that I agree with disrupting the process. Anyway, just another example of the StAbIlTy provided by this government (Piñera last week said that the worst of the crisis had already passed....)

[kaoras]

More news:

UDI has unfrozen its participation in Chile Vamos and will support "reject" in the plebiscite. They even claim that there aren't conditions to hold a plebiscite. (Which says wonders about the ability of the government to maintain public order)

8 of 9 of RN's senators and 21 of its 36 deputies will also support "reject" in the plebiscite. They claim that a constituent process will only distract Congress from giving solutions and that they can do changes immediately. This is a particularly stupid argument considering that if Approve wins, they support a mixed convention over a Constituent Assembly which will only distract Congress even more. Also, Congress really have not solved any structural issue since the start of the unrest. The official party line is freedom of action.

This is all very orchestrated. You see, the PSU was in the end successfully boycotted with the History test being canceled, in a spectacular failure of the government's contingency plans. The minister of education, after doing absolutely nothing the whole week, finally appeared doing the only thing this government knows : add more logs to the fire, seeking maximum repression for students leader who called the boycott with the State Interior Security Law and denying access to university to anyone who participated. The right hopes that the backslash over this will lead to a fall in support to for a new constitution (and they WILL probably make it appear that way through the CADEM poll, whose director openly participates in government's strategic meetings)

Finally, the government claimed that the bullets used by the police at repriming the protest are made of rubber in a report to the ONU. This, despite that a study done by the Universidad de Chile showed that bullets are only 20% rubber, with the rest being lead, barium and silicon, which led to the police stop using them. This evil, murderous government should have resigned long ago if it had a scrap of dignity, but is the Chilean right that we are talking about after all.

[kaoras]

Updates:

Of the ruling coalition, Chile Vamos, UDI is for Reject in the upcoming plebiscite, RN is split with freedom of action but with a "majority for Reject". EVOPOLI and PRI (kinda amazed that it still exists) support Approve. Kast and his Republican Party obviously are for Reject (and could be fined for campaigning outside the official period).

Literally everyone else is for Approve, including all former New Majority, former Broad Front, what is left of the Broad Front, etc. They also have almost no coordination whatsoever between them, standard for the Chilean left.

Polls have been fairly static with 70%+ for Approve and 20% for Reject, but usually higher % for Approve among people who actually plan to vote. The Constitutional Convention holds a much narrower lead over the Mixed Convention (50-40 or 50-30). Speaking of that, there is still no accord for gender parity in the eventual Convention, Congress said that they will figure it out in March.

The impeachment of the Intendente of the Metropolitan Region failed in the Senate due to several absences of the opposition. This is hardly shocking given the level of disarray on the left.

The government managed to approve several "anti-vandalism" and "anti-looting" laws with Christian Democratic support. This obviously generated outrage, being seen as further repression of protests and questioning the fact they approved that and not any structural reform that addresses the root of the protests. There has been some "advance" on the pension system reform. First the opposition reached an agreement (6% extra employee's contribution going to a common fund), which was almost immediately broken by the DC who reached an agreement with the government (who propose a 3% for a common fund and 3% to individual accounts). But then the Christian Democrat leader in the Senate said that the deal wasn't a thing in the Senate so...

Speaking of repression, in the last days, there has been a reignition of violence (not to previous levels though) related to police brutality. First, a Carabineros (police) truck ran over a football fan, didn't stop to help him and then the guanaco (a vehicle that throws high-pressure water to disperse protests) attacked the people who tried to help him. The fan died and that led to the most violent day of incidents since November. Then, a video was divulged that showed a brutal beating of a single protester by 7 Carabineros who then ran away. This has led to attacks on police stations. Carabineros has been violating Human Rights since the beginning of the protests, as shown by several Human Rights reports and yet the Government has not done anything to stop this and they refuse to fire the leader of the Police.

According to CEP, 88% think that Carabineros violated human rights during the protests (64% frequently), and according to Criteria, 59% think they hurt people intentionally, 60% that they incite violence, and 57% think that they infiltrate protest to generate riots.

[Antonio the Sixth]

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

[kaoras]

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

In many ways, Christian Democrats would fit better in a center-right coalition with the sane parts of RN and Evopoli. But its dirigent cadre has spent all his life fighting with the Right and joining them is seen by most as something unfathomable. Even people who were in the right-wing of the party and left it (Progresismo con Progreso), have not actually been able to do the final step and join the right, despite frequently defending Piñera and company. Besides, what is left of its voting base is mostly party loyalists who still gloat about Frei Montalva government and despise the right with all their soul, they lost most of its moderate voters long ago.

What the Christian Democrats actually want is going back to the good old days of the Concertación and technocratic centrism, when they were by far the dominant party of the coalition and its partners weren't trying to do some scary structural reforms. The DC has been in constant decline for the last 30 years, it is a matter of time for them to become irrelevant, and I can't wait.

[Velasco]

Christian Democrats indeed look like the very definition of uselessness, a walking corpse in an empty shell. The Good Old Days are gone and will never come back. It s a shame the division of the progressive camp, I have to say. Structural reforms demand unity of action.

[kaoras]

Parties and Joint Electoral Committees registered at the Electoral Service to run ads in the obligatory television ad campaign. This offers some light into the liquid and messy state of parties' alliances (especially on the left)

7 parties will run ads by themselves. Those are UDI, Kast's Republican Party (Both for Reject), RN (70% of its time will go to Reject, 30% to Approve), EVOPOLI, DC (Both Approve), Humanist Party and Ecologist Party (Both former members of the Broad Front, both for Approve)

There are three Joint Committees: Progressive Convergence (Socialists, PPD and Radicals); Apruebo Chile Digno ("Approve Dignified Chile", Communists, Regionalist, Ominami's PRO and former Broad Front Member Equality Party); and Que Chile Decida ("Let Chile Decide", Most of what is left of the Broad Front: RD, Poder Ciudadano, Liberal Party). All of them are for approving.

Some Comments: The Right didn't put forward any Joint Committee given the divergences between the ruling coalition. However, UDI has expressed its wish to cooperate with Kast and the Republican Party, while heavily criticizing the recent RN's president (who is for Approve) early talks with the Ex-Concertación parties (DC, PS, PPD, PR) to reach some accords on the social agenda. This might be a fault line in the future.

On the Left, the parties that left the Broad Front have not regrouped, each one following different paths. Equality's presence on the Communist's Committee is significant because it probably means it will join the Communist coalition, "Unidad por el Cambio". Besides, Progressive Convergence still tries to be a thing, maybe now they will give it a logo at least... (The press widely calls them Ex-New Majority or Ex-Concertación, which is frankly pathetic).

Well, the situation of alliances in the left for the upcoming elections beyond the plebiscite (local and regional*) is more or less as follows: Unidad por el Cambio wants unity with all the opposition, but doesn't want anything to do with the DC. The feeling is mutual and the DC also really doesn't like the Broad Front orbit but might support some limited deals with them. Progressive Convergence wants opposition unity, DC included (emphasis on that). What is left of Broad Front wants opposition unity, but really doesn't like the DC (or Progressive Convergence for that matter, but they don't have much choice there) and would prefer limited deals. The parties that left the Broad Front (Humanist etc) likely will follow their own paths but the electoral reality could push them towards an alliance with the communists or something.

*There have been some talks about canceling the elections for regional governors (which will be chosen for the first time in October) but while many want that, no one wants to pay the political price.

[kaoras]

Well, for obvious reasons the referendum has been postponed to October, 25th.

Municipal, Regional and Constituent convention (if Approve wins) elections have also been postponed to next year, April 11th.

The coronavirus is still not totally out of control, despite this government's best efforts. I don't know what statement is better to illustrate: "What if the virus mutates and becomes a good person?"(Minister of health, explaining why they are not pushing for total Quarantine or more restrictions) or "The most relevant vaccine for Coronavirus is love (Government spokeswoman)

[kaoras]

Coronavirus has sent Piñera approvals to long-unseen heights of... 21%, according to CADEM (the most favorable pollster), the bump coming mostly from right-wingers. I'm way to immerse in a left-wing bubble to have a nuanced view of how people are seeing the government response, but given that CADEM stopped asking (as they usually do for uncomfortable topics for the government) I'm guessing it is mediocre but enough to rally the right around the flag.

BTW, there's been a coronavirus outbreak in a prison, and the government pushed for a law giving parole to low-danger inmates during the emergency. The Right obviously went to the Constitutional Court because the law was discriminatory for not including... human-rights violators. Do you see? this is the kind of thing that makes people vote for whatever cardboard the left presents. 

[Former President tack50]

I assume "human right violators" essencially means those who applied the repression during the Pinochet days correct?

To be honest if so I would be surprised that Chile actually sent them to jail in the first placde; given how a peaceful transition like the one here normally means they are given amnesty alongside the real political prisoners.

[kaoras]

I assume "human right violators" essencially means those who applied the repression during the Pinochet days correct?

To be honest if so I would be surprised that Chile actually sent them to jail in the first placde; given how a peaceful transition like the one here normally means they are given amnesty alongside the real political prisoners.

Yeah, there are several of them in jail, mostly lower rank officials. I think the highest-ranking one that went to jail was Manuel Contreras, director of the secret police. They aren't in normal prisons btw, they have their own special and semi-luxurious prison.

[kaoras]

So, I made this a while ago. It shows the electoral trends between the blocs inside the Chilean left.




DC: Christian Democratic Party
Main Left: Socialist Party (PS), Party for Democracy (PPD), Radical Party (PR), Communist Party (PC) (between 2009-2017) + small parties and independents* within Concertación/New Majority alliance
Other Left: All leftist parties outside Concertacion/New Majority Alliances, notably Communist Party (between 1990-2009), Humanist Party (PH), Broad Front alliance (2017).

_{*There are minor inconsistencies regarding independents, I generally included them in Main Left (which is very debatable but is a small effect), except in 2008 and 2012 councils elections (I excluded them altogether, which means the total left vote is slightly higher those years)}  



As you can see, the Chilean left has maintained a relatively consistent level of support after the early 90's high, but the strength of its internal blocs has varied a lot. The Christian Democrats, the more moderate party has declined almost constantly en every election. The "main left" grew in the '90s and stabilized ever since until the Broad Front irruption in 2017, but its force within the Concertación alliance grew due to the decline of the DC. The "other left" (which are to the left of the Concertación) has had more variation but finally exploded in 2017 with the rise of Broad Front. Is notable that while the sector was dominated by the communist in the 90's , it diversified and kept attracting protest and very leftist voters even after the communist and its loyal voter base joined the Concertación /New Majority.

You could debate my choice of blocs, The DC for example at some points have "allied" with the radicals (90's) and socialists (late 2000s and early 2010s) but I would argue that those electoral and intra-alliance pacts had little effect on how voters perceived those parties and at the end of the day, PS and Radical have always been pushing for more left-wing policies than the DC. I also defend the inclusion of the communist in the main left between 2009 and 2017 because they were clearly part of the mainstream leftist coalition* and took a pragmatic stance which was very different from its previous (or posterior) behavior.

My point, however, is that the Chilean left has become more and more leftwing over the years, which is something that people usually don't talk about that much.


^{*Again, this is debatable between 2009 and 2013, but they were included in the mainstream electoral pact}

[kaoras]

Term limits have been approved. I know those things aren't very popular here but the amount of disgusting individuals and their clientelistic machines that are going to be out thanks to this makes it worthy IMO. 3 periods for Deputies and Mayors (12 years) and 2 for Senators (16 years).

In other news, Coronavirus situation is worse than ever thanks to government ineptitude and I'm honestly starting to think that the October Referendum might be in jeopardy. There is however strong resistance from the opposition to delaying it further, but who knows, Santiago is a disaster totally out of control and a second wave could be really damaging. (Although we are not even at the peak of the first one so...)

[Former President tack50]

At this point I guess the big question is how low can Piñera's approval get

Does Chile have some sort of impeachment procedure? And how likely is it to get used against Piñera?

[kaoras]

At this point I guess the big question is how low can Piñera's approval get

Does Chile have some sort of impeachment procedure? And how likely is it to get used against Piñera?

Piñera is near its best approval since October if you believe CADEM at 27% (it has strong links with Piñera himself but it has the best methodology of the polls that come out regularly). Others like Activa have him down to 12% or up to 24% (Criteria, both are trash IMO).

Chile does have impeachment and it was already used last year in the context of the unrest. It failed in the Chamber of Deputies. The quorum is very high, the right alone can block it in the senate so it will never happen.

I do think that the right will get slaughtered in the next elections (Most political pundits think it won't so it will probably happen). But the left is so pathetic that I don't know who will really benefit. Maybe Chile emerges out of all of this with a totally new party system.

[Lumine]

Piñera has seen a curious increase in approval ratings, though Cadem (flawed and all) suggests it is mostly center-right and right voters coming back for the time being (some self-described "centrists" as well, but not many). It's obviously difficult to predict what comes next and whether he'll end up in single digits again (certainly not impossible), though it's fair to say he's not ever becoming reasonably popular again (or climbing above 35%) barring some sort of miracle.

One would expect the center-right to be headed towards electoral oblivion worse than 2013 simply by accounting for what took place since October, but tellingly enough the opposition has been remarkably unsuccessful in capitalizing from the government's glaring mistakes. Not only are they still way too divided (and in petty ways too) amongst each other and within their parties, their approval ratings are also mediocre. Not to mention that there's a glaring lack of presidential candidates at the moment which are both credible and popular, and to their credit Chile Vamos does seem to have a larger, more capable presidential bench.

So, amazingly enough, the Chilean right can't quite be counted out yet, though I don't think they'll actually be able to win barring the opposition really screwing it up (and badly).

Gun to my head I'd say the left will eventually find a semi-competent presidential candidate (probably not someone currently in elected office), he/she will take off in the polls, and they'll eventually prevail by reuniting in the second round against the eventual CV nominee in a fairly convincing victory. Or, alternatively, we will get a godawful vaguely (or strongly) left-wing populist that will sweep the elections in an insurgent wave or something of the sort.

[kaoras]

As Chile passes Italy in the number of total cases of Coronavirus, Piñera decided to create an "instance" with experts to review the constitutionality of bills presented by Congress before they advance in the legislative process. He complained that there are too many unconstitutional bills (mainly related to the fact that a bill presented by Congress can't create new expending). As is the norm with this government, nobody knows how exactly that would work, but there were a lot of complaints from legislators saying that is undue interference.

Referring to this idea, Piñera also said that nobody is above the law, just as was revealed that he violated the protocols at the funeral of his uncle. His uncle died of "Pneumonia with Coronavirus" and protocol said that the coffin shouldn't be open. Piñera wanted to see the body of his uncle and the coffin was open even as his cousin shouted that they shouldn't do that. Besides, there were 31 people at the ceremony, when protocol says that there can only be 20 people maximum. His family said that the workers and musicians they brought "didn't count".

Today it was also revealed that the same day there were protests in a poor neighborhood of Santiago due to lack of food (a consequence of the lockdown), the Government palace made a bidding for gourmet food such as wild boar pate, caviar, among other fancy stuff.

If one trusts government data (which, well, let's say it requires quite some faith) maaaaybe we reached the peak, but the plebiscite remains uncertain.