by Jaime Baeza Freer*

Chilean voters on May 7 handed right-wing parties a massive victory in the elections for the second Constitutional Convention– reaffirming popular rejection of the first draft and showing frustration with the sagging economy and soaring crime rates – but the extreme-right Republicans will have to deliver a balanced Constitution that reflects the country’s democratic values or get the boot in the referendum on it in December.

• The Republicans and several more moderate right-wing parties won three-fifths of the seats in the country’s second Constitutional Convention – in stark contrast with the previous convention’s wide range of socialists, leftists, indigenous leaders, environmentalists, and former social activists. The election outcome was in tune with last year’s referendum, when 62 percent of the electorate rejected the previous convention’s draft Constitution.

The electorate’s sharp U-turn suggests a rejection of the former convention and current administration of President Gabriel Boric more than an embrace of the Republicans, some of whom are conspiracy theorists, far right extremists, and loners. Conservative Luis Silva, the most-voted candidate in the country, has caused outrage by stating his “admiration” for dictator Augusto Pinochet (whom he called “a statesman”), and he has adamantly proclaimed that issues like abortion, gay marriage, and migration are simply off the table and should be expressly banned in the draft Constitutional. Mr. Silva is a numerary of the Opus Dei. Press reports also allege that many candidates were nominated to fill vacated lists with no hope of winning. Some newly elected Republicans are unfit for office; one resigned his seat due to an indictment (still in trial) for domestic violence.

• Most voters who cast their ballot for the Republicans, however, are not extremists. Indeed, party leader José Antonio Kast – who placed second in the 2021 presidential election (with 44 percent of the second-round vote) – is not an extreme right-wing supremacist or anything closely related as some of his opponents have alleged. Indeed, polls show a correlation of voters’ discontent with the Boric administration and support for Kast. According to Decide Chile pollster Cristóbal Huneeus, 16 out of the 35 percent of the votes the Republicans received were “circumstantial” and from persons who usually vote for the left.
• The outcome has created the appearance that voters have swung to the other extreme of the political spectrum, but people are not against liberal values like marriage equality, women’s rights, or LGBTQIA+ rights. According to Bicentennial Polls by the Pontifical Catholic University, less than half of Chileans regard themselves as Catholics.

The main lesson of the election is that voters are annoyed with the patronizing attitudes from some quarters of the liberal elites, who went too far and too quickly to the left in the first draft of the new Constitution while the economy could not recover its pre-2019 levels. Most of the population is still trying to fulfill basic needs like housing, jobs, lowering crime rates, and dealing with an impoverished economy after the pandemic and uncontrolled immigration.

• On the new Constitution, the message of the population is a wish for one that stands on the idea of order and economic freedom as the most precious assets without rejecting individual freedoms – a position that some Republicans are unable to accept, as they want to go all the way to extreme conservative positions. Kast gained enormous credit from this election, and he’s hoping to take power in two years in the general election. As poised as the Republicans appear, however, reality can change anytime. A lack of moderation, including expressions of admiration for Pinochet, can lead to their defeat when the new draft is put to a referendum in December.
• The defeat of the leftist coalition is a major setback for President Boric. His coalition, in power for over a year, had hoped to use the previous draft Constitution to enact several progressive reforms. Now they are stuck in a process that does not belong to them anymore. Even if the new draft is more conservative than middle Chile wants and is rejected December – near the halfway mark of term – Boric will have difficulty regaining the momentum to get his presidency off the launchpad.

* Jaime Baeza Freer is a Research Fellow at the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies at American University and Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Chile.