Chilean President Gabriel Boric emphasized this Friday that if the new Constitution is rejected at the polls on September 4, “a new constitutional process” must be carried out in that country.
In Chilevision, the president stressed that it will be “legitimate to choose either of the two options. Approve or Reject”, although his doubt lies in what will happen after election day, since there is consensus that the current Constitution does not represent a “social agreement” in that country.
Boric affirmed that the Chilean people want a new Constitution, which must be “written by a body specially chosen for that purpose,” Therefore, if it is rejected, “a new constituent process” will have to begin.
The new Constitution contains 388 articles and 57 temporary application rules. The first article reads as follows: “Chile is a social and democratic state of law. It is multinational, intercultural, regional and ecological”.
The latest polls give advantage to “rejection”. The firm Criteria showed that, two months after the consultation, this option obtains 48% against 31% for “approve”, while 22% still do not know what they will vote for.
The pollster Cadem assigns 51% to the “rejection” option, 34% to the “approve” option and 15% to the undecided, while TuInfluyes.com grants 46%, 41% and 13%, respectively.
The criticism of ‘The Economist’ to the new Chilean Constitution
The prestigious English magazine The Economist He called a few days ago to reject the new Chilean Constitution, for which he urged to vote against it in the plebiscite that will take place next Sunday, September 4.
In an article titled Voters should reject Chile’s new constitutional draftthe middle he described the new Constitution as a “great mistake” and a “fiscally irresponsible and excessively progressive disaster.”
On the economic side, he says that “the document is much less favorable to business or growth than the current Constitution. It gives unions the exclusive right to represent workers, guarantees them participation in company decision-making and allows them to strike for any reason.”
Likewise, assures that “the project creates a portfolio of socioeconomic rights that could trigger the budget. It requires the creation of several new organisms, like a National Health Service and a cradle-to-grave care system, without giving much thought to how they would be financed.”
They also charge that the document “omits some of the worst ideas aired in the assembly, dominated by leftists. Among them, the nationalization of resources and the suppression of the Upper House”.
Although he highlighted some points, such as the demand for the return of some powers to the regions, which “would give indigenous people the right to be taught in their own languages in schools.”
But he assured that the draft that will be put to the vote “is a confusing mess, full of imprecise language that guarantees more or less decades of disputes about what it really means.”
“’Nature’ would have rights. The project mentions ‘gender’ 39 times. court rulings, the Police and the national health system will have to function with a ‘gender perspective’, which it does not define”, she argued.
“The old Chilean Constitution was not perfect. In fact, it has been modified almost 60 times. But compared to the one it is proposed to replace, it is a model of clarity. And what is more important, the old government project works. Since democracy was restored, Chile has been a Latin American success story. GDP per person has tripled since 1990 and poverty has decreased,” she pointed out.
*With information from AFP.