The preposterous Constitution of Chile: 499 articles that threaten the country’s national unity

(Interamerican Institute for Democracy) Chile’s Constitutional Convention has delivered the proposed draft of the new Constitution so that a “harmonization commission” can prepare the final text to be presented to the President of the Republic this coming 5th of July so that he may call for a “mandatory referendum” to be held on 4 September. They propose a new Constitution of 499 articles to turn -or so they say- Chile into a “Social democratic State of law, plurinational, intercultural, and ecological” a “Republic in solidarity with parity democracy”. Reading such an extensive document, however, highlights its true nature of being a “preposterous constitution” that wrecks the Chilean nation apart and that instead of uniting it can create greater confrontation.

From a perspective of formality, the 499 proposed articles that are in a “harmonization” process reveal to be nothing more than a replica of the Bolivarian Constitution of Venezuela with its 350 articles, and a copy of the constitution of the Plurinational State of Bolivia with its 411 articles and another replica of the Castrochavist regime in Ecuador with 444 articles. Reading the proposed texts one can see the undesired deceptiveness in a constitutional text that, by definition, must contain principles, and be “an agreement of the rules of coexistence, a political and social covenant that establishes, organizes, and integrates the fundamental guidelines that govern the society of a State”.

With its content, the proposal does not meet the mandate that reads “the text of the New Constitution to be considered for adoption through a referendum, must respect the State’s character as the Republic of the Chilean State, its democratic regime, its judicial rulings affirmed and enforced, its international treaties ratified by Chile and still in existence” as ordained by Article 135 of the Constitutional Reform procedures that birthed the Convention, law 20200.

The formation of a “plurinational State” destroys the “Chilean nation” and supplants the republic because it introduces -just as it was done with the new constitution imposed to Bolivia- the acknowledgement of several nationalities supplanting the “pluri-cultural” nature integrated into the Chilean nation and replaces it with the permanent confrontation between diverse, nations, in order to breakup national unity. The proposal establishes that “the Mapuche, Aymara, Rapa Nui, Lickanantay, Quechua, Colla, Diaguita, Chango, Kawashkar, Yaghan, Selk’nam, and others which may be recognized as established by law, are preexisting indigenous nations” and it adds that these peoples and indigenous nations “have the right to; autonomy and self-government, their own culture, identity and world vision, estate and language, the acknowledgement of their right to possess their own estate, territories, the protection of their maritime territory, the nature of their material and immaterial dimension…” all of which “ends Chile’s national sovereignty”.

The part of “a republic in solidarity with parity democracy” and its execution, show that by constitutional mandate the equality of all will be perverted and distorted by defining “parity democracy” as “the State acknowledges and promotes a society in which women, men, diversities and generic dissident sex genres participate under conditions of substantial equality…” and then it ordains “all governmental, constitutionally autonomous, and superior and directive organizations… shall have an equal participation that will ensure that at least 50% of their members will be women” leaving the remaining 50% to be distributed amongst the minorities it created; men, diversities, and generic sex genre dissidents.

At the Legislative Branch their intent is to supplant the Senatorial Chambers with “the Chambers of the Regions… a deliberative, parity, and plurinational body of regional representation charged with the responsibility of drafting legislation of regional accord”. In the case of the President of the Republic, the proposal in Article 10, Paragraphs 1 and 2 only requires for the President to be of “Chilean nationality” and bypasses the existing requirement of the current constitution’s Article 25 requiring the President to be “born in Chile’s territory… son or daughter of Chilean parents…”.

The electoral system, also replicated from the Castrochavist constitutions of Venezuela and Bolivia, ends universal suffrage based on the equality of all citizens and recognized to be “one of the fundamental components of democracy”, because it proposes to establish “reserved congressional seats for the indigenous peoples and nations in those institutions that have popular representation at the local, regional and national levels…”

The proposal eliminates Chile’s Police Corps (Carabineros de Chile in Spanish) and replaces the current Constitution’s concept mandating “Public Order and Security Forces shall be solely comprised by Chile’s Police Corps and Investigations” establishing “Police Forces” that are “police, non-military institutions, that have a centralized character with jurisdiction throughout Chile’s territory”.

As I had indicated in my analysis titled “Chile’s Constituent Based on the Dictatorial Referendum and a Simulated Majority” published in INFOBAE on 28 February of 2021, the Chilean Constituent process is the result of violent acts that took the government to a “peace accord and a new constitution” replacing the referendum that had been suppressed by President Lagos’ constitutional reform. This is how, in the referendum of 25 October of 2020, the Constituent was approved with 50.95% of the votes of registered voters and the result was presented to the nation as “78.28% of the population” or “the overwhelming majority of Chileans” when, in fact, it was only 39.61% of Chilean voters.

Now comes “the Constitutional National Referendum” or “the Exit Referendum” so that “the citizenry approves or rejects” the proposed text drafted by the Convention. “To vote in this referendum will be mandatory for those who are Chilean registered voters”. This makes it necessary for 50% plus one of Chilean registered voters to approve the text because, otherwise, it shall remain as automatically rejected.

The new constitution proposed by the Constitutional Convention appears to be devoid of unity, nation, and democracy. It has far too many similarities with disruptive and manipulated texts of 21st Century Socialism in nations that, today, suffer the consequences to have allowed for governmental crises to be turned into State’s crises and these in-turn into constituents.

*Attorney & Political Scientist. Director of the Interamerican Institute for Democracy.

Translation from Spanish by Edgar L. Terrazas