Chileans Have Not Changed Their Minds—Their Desires Remain the Same as in 2019
Chileans have never wanted a new country or a drastically different economic model. All along, they have held the same demands.
Chile’s Constitutional Experiment: A Global Lesson in Direct Democracy?
Chile’s experiment and constitutional rewrite is a global lesson in direct democracy for both good and bad.
Patricio Navia: La refundación de la derecha
Chile’s Big Gamble Just Got Riskier
Patricio Navia: La debacle de la derecha
Opinión: Chile sueña con el cielo, pero no ve que abajo está el infierno
Piñera stumbles as Chile elects its Constitutional Convention
This past weekend, Chileans cast ballots for the 155 delegates to the Constitutional Convention that—per the result of a national plebiscite held last October, in which over 78 percent of voters opted to commence the process of constitutional reform—will be tasked with replacing the 1980 constitution promulgated by the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet.
Chile’s Constitutional Convention elections: institutional uncertainty and the long shadow of October 2019
Two things stood out when Chileans went to the polls for last October’s national plebiscite on the drafting of a new constitution. First, nearly 80 percent voted in favor of commencing the process to eventually draft a new constitution, signifying a fairly broad popular consensus that the path toward fixing the country’s ills would be an institutional one—quite a relief after the experience of the 2019 protests. Second, there was a high voter turnout: over 7.5 million Chileans, more than 50 percent of eligible voters, cast a ballot, marking the highest turnout since 2009 (in the middle of a pandemic, no less).