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Santiago, Chile – On a sunny winter day in the Chilean capital, a group from the La Reina neighborhood gathered in the eastern region of Santiago to help candidates for the Constitutional Convention, which could have been the most important election ever in the country a few days earlier. In good spirits, they waved flags, laughed and greeted each other with their elbows. They wore masks and shared alcohol gel.
Renato Garrido, one of the candidates, called on the people to vote, saying: “A new constitution will be the only way for our country to participate, justice, real freedom and growth. Citizens can reach agreements when they feel heard, with respect and tolerance for all opinions. we have to do it for the love we have. “
On May 15 and 16, Chileans will go to the polls to elect 155 members of the Constitutional Convention. His task will be to write a new constitution that should be submitted to a referendum in 2022. After a long struggle, the current constitution – written in the Pinochet dictatorship in the 1980s and much changed over the years – will be abandoned.
More than 1,300 candidates will compete to become members of the Constitutional Convention. For the first time, these elections meet the requirement of gender equality – giving women a proportional number of seats, and 17 places for indigenous people will be reserved.
Election experts fear that people will vote in large numbers, not only because of the pandemic, but because the government has provided little information about the whole process.
“Neither the state nor the government has seriously accepted that part of the population does not know that elections will be held over the weekend,” Marta Lagos Mori, director of the well-known polling company Chile, told national television.
Chilean voters will also elect mayors, governors and city councilors from across the nation. Presidential elections are scheduled for November.
This ambitious election calendar will take place during a difficult time in the country: a state of emergency, a nightmare, more than 10% of the working age population (two and a half million people) unemployed, and a deadly pandemic. nearly 27,000 people. Elections were scheduled for April but were postponed due to the large number of people with coronavirus infections.
Health authorities have stressed that Chileans will be able to vote in a safe environment, as cases have dropped in recent weeks, partly due to Chile’s successful campaign against the vaccine.
More than seven million people have already received two shootings (47 percent of the “target population”). But the nightmare isn’t over yet – about 40 percent of the country is still closed.
According to cultural adviser Javiera Parada, what is at stake with the upcoming elections is “the social pact of our political generations – which will allow us to restore civil coexistence and renew our institutions and their legitimacy.
“Chile urgently needs to make rules that call us all. That is essential if we are to return to the path of sustainable development. People know that changing the constitution is not enough, but it is necessary to have institutions that serve the time we live in and a new society. I believe in people, I believe in Chile and its future. “
Last October, Chileans sent a clear message to the national plebiscite, where 78 percent agreed with the electorate to write a new constitution. They will have nine months to write a new constitution – another three months.
Not everyone is enthusiastic.
“The Constitutional Convention was the result of a lame agreement reached by Congress on our backs. This is going to be a transitional constitution and in a couple of years, we will have a new social uprising because people’s demands will not be resolved, ”economist Moisés Scherman told Al Jazeera. Scherman said he will deliberately ruin the vote.
Most Chileans seem to agree on one point. Economic growth must bring comfort and well-being for all, not just a few.
In the last two decades, Chile has made progress towards greater economic prosperity and less poverty. Per capita income has doubled in the last 20 years and is now the highest in Latin America, but progress has stalled. The economy has grown, but under the right-wing government of Sebastián Piñera, one percent of the population owns 25% of the country’s wealth. It was this situation that led to the historic social uprisings in October 2019, which were severely suppressed by the police.
It was the result of people not being in line with the economic model and the situation of inequality in the country. Police (Carabineros) injured more than 3,700 people in October protests, according to a report by the Chilean National Institute of Human Rights in February 2020.
Proponents of the Constitutional Convention at the Plaza Egaña metro station in Santiago, Chile [Odette Magnet/Al Jazeera]
Some political analysts are concerned that expectations about the new constitution may be too ambitious and not reflect social realities. They want citizens to have diverse and diverse issues: human, women’s and workers ’rights, health, education, pension funds, child advocacy and protection, social welfare, the fight against crime, gender equality, the environment, domestic violence, freedom of expression, and more.
Patricio Navia, a political science professor at NYU and Diego Portales University in Chile, says, “People have high hopes for the new constitution. Many people see it as a magic pill that will solve all of Chile’s problems. is being implemented “.
According to Navia, in order for Chile to expand its social security network, “the country needs to develop much more economically than in the past. For that to happen, there must be clear rules to attract foreign investment and equality of opportunity for all.”
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