With long lines under the sun, Chilean citizens have come out to vote on the fate of the draft constitution, which was the political solution that the country found to get out of the political crisis of October 2019.
This mandatory plebiscite is the end of a process that began almost three years ago, with a transversal political agreement to draft a constitution to replace the 1980 one, written during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990).
It is not the first time that Chile has experienced a historic election on September 4. In 1952, it was the first time Chilean women were able to vote. Eighteen years later, in 1970, the socialist Salvador Allende won the presidential elections.
In Santiago, the capital of Chile, the voting centers have long lines from the opening, at 8:00 a.m. The voting booths will remain open until 6:00 p.m. local time (5:00 p.m. Mexico City time).
On foot, by subway, by bicycle or by bus, people arrived at the posts, which changed in this election to be closer to the voters’ homes, according to the Chilean Electoral Service. The private transportation platform Uber also offered 50% to those who will use the service to vote.
“Mansa row,” says a man upon arriving at his polling station, at the Liceo de Aplicacion, a school in Santiago Centro, where the lines were more than a block long since 10:05 a.m. However, the process is mostly quick.
At the Republic of Ecuador Basic School, on Bernardo O’Higgins or Alameda Avenue, the main road in Santiago, the queues are also more than 100 people, despite the temperatures of up to 26 degrees that are felt in the region. .
“The process has been super friendly, there is a person here who tells you where your table is and the line you have to do, this takes about 5 minutes, and to go to the table at school and cast the vote, it took about three minutes,” says Gonzalo, 51, as he leaves the voting center.
Although during the campaign, mainly in the last week, there was an atmosphere of strong polarization, today the election is lived calmly. Voters come with family or friends; with toddlers, babies in strollers, or even your dogs.
“I feel very happy about what is happening. Today in the morning I was listening to a couple of presidents who spoke of a tense climate, even belligerent, but this is not the case”, indicates Gonzalo, who refers to the statements of former presidents Ricardo Lagos and Eduardo Frei, who have shown their concern about the constitutional process.
The new text, of 178 pages and elaborated during a year by a Constitutional Convention, establishes a “Social State of Rights”, in response to claims expressed in the massive social demonstrations of October 2019.
The project consecrates the indigenous plurinationality and establishes a new catalog of social rights in health, abortion, education and pensions, with a marked environmental emphasis and the protection of new rights, although it maintains the market economy.
“The fact that the voice of the people has finally been heard, that something has been achieved after several demonstrations, was extremely significant,” says Paula, 31, after casting her vote.
The “Rejection” option of the new Constitution has led all the polls for more than a month, but the “Approve” campaign mobilized crowds, especially in Santiago, fueling the illusion of victory.
The closing acts of the campaign on Thursday in the capital of this country of almost 20 million inhabitants, gave two very different photos that contrast with the forecasts.
The “Apruebo” street party gathered between 250,000 and 500,000 people, according to the organizers, while the closing act of “Rechazo” consisted of an event of no more than 400 people in an amphitheater in Santiago.
The president of Chile, Gabriel Boric, assured that whatever the result of the plebiscite, he will call for “national unity” in an exercise with “more democracy” to overcome social fractures, he said when voting to applause in his hometown of Punta Arenas, extreme southern Chile.
Former president Michelle Bachelet, very popular in this country, said that if the Rejection option wins, as the polls anticipate, “the demands of Chileans will not be satisfied” and a new process should be called. The former president voted in Geneva, Switzerland, where she has just left her position as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
For the first time in more than a decade, going to the polls is mandatory under penalty of a maximum fine of 180,000 pesos (almost 4,000 Mexican pesos). That, along with youth turnout, could tip the balance among the more than 15 million voters.
Experts expect the participation of more than 11 million people, well above the 8.3 million who voted in December, when the leftist Gabriel Boric won the presidential election, in what is already anticipated as a “participatory revolution.”
