Chile’s second attempt to replace the constitution imposed in 1980 by Augusto Pinochet reveals how the ghost of the dictator continues to haunt this country.
“Pinochet is not dead: he is a 250-year-old vampire that feeds on the blood of young hearts and flies over Santiago de Chile to hunt them down.” Thus begins “The Count”, Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín’s satire that ridicules Pinochet and his family, with the stellar appearance of Margaret Thatcher as off-screen narrator and character. The parody, which is the talk of Chile, focuses on impunity and the ubiquitous presence of the dictator in the popular consciousness.
The image of Pinochet as a vampire or spectre is not rare in Chile. In May, a CERC-MORI poll revealed that 36% of respondents believed the 1973 coup that put him in power was justified – the highest percentage since records have been kept. The myth of the Pinochet miracle has been reinvigorated in the midst of current public security problems and an economy that is not taking off, according to the researchers. “Pinochet's shadow 50 years after the coup rises like a spectre that can’t rest in peace,” the report says.
The Netflix movie premiered on 8 September, shortly before the 50th anniversary of the coup, in a tense atmosphere. Hundreds of supporters of the dictator showed up the next day in front of La Moneda, the government palace bombed on the day of the coup, with vindictive banners. “Fifty years later, Chile [is] against communism again,” read one of them.
The following day, 10 September, saw the traditional annual demonstration of leftist parties and human rights movements, also in front of La Moneda, with a march to the General Cemetery where Salvador Allende – the socialist president who resisted Pinochet’s attack and committed suicide in La Moneda – is buried.
“The dictatorship transformed Chile into a country of individualists, with no sense of collectivity,” one of the demonstrators, Enrique, told openDemocracy as the march approached the cemetery. The air was filled with tear gas; clashes between Carabineros – the military police – and radicalised demonstrators forced the pace to quicken.
“We live in times of justification and relativism, and that is painful for those of us who have victims, but also for anyone who calls himself a democrat,” the 40-year-old man, with several relatives who disappeared during the dictatorship, added.
At the cemetery, the unrest grew; Carabineros vehicles entered the park to disperse demonstrators. The corridors between tombs and flowers became a labyrinth for those trying to escape the tear gas. The scene, with some variations, is repeated every year. The difference this time was president Gabriel Boric joining the march at the beginning, before his security forces intervened.
Meanwhile, most people were at home, preparing for the national festivities beginning on 18 September, when the country's independence is celebrated with food, drink, dances and typical songs, in a ritual that stretches for several days. Chilean flags bloom on balconies, stores and even on the hoods of cars.
“September is a paradoxical month for Chile, because it has a part of mourning and a part of celebration,” justice and human rights minister Luis Cordero told openDemocracy.
For defenders of the coup, the whole month can be a celebration. They hang the flag on their balcony before 11 September as a form of support, as opposed to those who put it up after that day to emphasise mourning.
“If there is one thing about September, it’s that it leaves nobody indifferent,” the minister added. “There is an inevitable tension between supporters and detractors of the dictatorship, but that same tension reminds us of the costs of democratic fragility, and how institutions can end up collapsing.”
At the end of August, the government introduced a National Plan for the Search for Truth and Justice to investigate more than 1,000 cases of disappeared people. “If the state committed those crimes, the state is the one who has to take charge of their search,” Cordero said.
The minister recognised progress made by previous governments through truth commissions, such as the one that produced the Rettig Report in 1991 (which documented for the first time 2,296 cases of human rights violations over 16 and a half years) as well as investigations by the judiciary. But he thinks more collective work is needed on the findings of those investigations and, ultimately, on what happened during the regime: “It is not a return to the past, as some believe; it is an exercise of memory to repair wounds. There is a debt that we have not paid.”
On the anniversary of the coup, Boric led an official ceremony outside La Moneda, with the opposition refusing to attend. “Allende does not deserve homage” was the argument put forward by the centre-right coalition Chile Vamos. The Independent Democratic Union (UDI), a party founded by Pinochet supporters that is part of this coalition, presented its own statement, saying the outcome of 11 September 1973 was “inevitable”.
The UDI, considered for many years the space that best represented Pinochetism, lost that condition in 2016 when one of its deputies, José Antonio Kast, resigned to found the Republican Party – a far-right force that articulates a frontal criticism to the entire political system.
The task of replacing the constitution drafted by the Pinochet regime was left in the hands of the party that best represents Pinochetism
Kast, who campaigned for Pinochet remaining in power in a plebiscite organised by the dictator in 1988, appears now as leader of the opposition, after having won a place in the second round of the 2021 presidential race. Most of the analysis on the return of Pinochetism are based on his rise.
This prominence grew exponentially since May, when his party got a super majority in the constitutional council (22 of 50 seats), tasked with the drafting of a new constitution after the failure of the first process in 2022, then dominated by leftist forces.
Thus – and this is the first paradox – the task of replacing the constitution drafted by the Pinochet regime was left in the hands of the party that best represents Pinochetism, and the only one that actually campaigned against the initial attempt to replace it.
Citizens exhausted
As the leadership is more polarised than ever since the return of democracy, society is increasingly distancing from politics. This year, most people were not interested in the anniversary of the coup, according to a survey.
This is the second paradox: the approval of the new constitution will depend on a disengaged electorate.
“There is an enormous gap between the political world and society, and that can be seen in this process,” said a member of the Republican Party, who asked not to be named because of his closeness to the constitutional council. “The previous [attempt to pass a new constitution] awakened a lot of interest. People were informed. Here there is still coverage and information every day, but it is no longer interesting.
“People are worried about inflation, unemployment, insecurity, and they know the constitution is not going to solve any of those problems. So they only think about putting an end to this process.”
The distance between the two constitutional processes – the failed one and the current one – speaks volumes about how the social mood has changed in a few years.
The first one was a direct consequence of the 2019 social unrest. A convention of 155 members elected on a gender parity basis, with seats reserved for indigenous peoples, was charged with drafting a text that reflected, to some extent, the composition of the body, dominated by left-wing independents, many of whom had no political experience – and with the right unable to veto proposals.
The intention was to remove the “subsidiary state” model enshrined in the Pinochet constitution, which corners the state to a secondary role with regards to the private sector, limiting it to provide services only where businesses fail to do so – and to embrace instead a social welfare state.
The process seemed encapsulated by the rise of Boric, a former student leader, in the 2021 presidential elections. A new left had managed to capitalise on social discontent.
The dream was shattered on 4 September 2022, when the proposal was defeated with 62% of the vote. The “no” vote won across the country, in all social sectors and even among indigenous voters that the proposal had aspired to represent.
The discrediting of the convention, and disappointment with the government, were at the forefront of a campaign tinged by disinformation about the draft. Unlike in previous elections, the vote was mandatory, with three million new voters. The left thought this electorate would favour a constitution that replaced Pinochet’s, but the opposite happened.
Until recently, on the walls of Santiago and other corners of the country there were mentions to the 2019 unrest. Those slogans have almost disappeared now. The center of the city, once bustling with people, appears withdrawn, a consequence of insecurity. Street stalls have fewer customers, affected by inflation (which is at 6.5%, but still high by Chilean standards), while unemployment is on the rise.
The 2022 failed plebiscite was a hard blow for the government, which now has an approval rate of just 30%, according to surveys. The new left was a victim of the crisis of representation, which some analysts call "destituent mood": citizens vote, first and foremost, against what is established.
A far-right constitution
The Republican Party capitalised on this discontent and won a majority in the May elections for the constitutional council, a more limited body elected by popular vote and totally controlled by political parties.
The new process was set up very differently. An experts committee appointed by Congress penned a consensus draft, which established constitutional bases – red lines – on which the constitutional council had to work.
Antonia Rivas, a member of the experts committee appointed by Convergencia Social, Boric's party, told openDemocracy: "The draft introducded was quite balanced, and achieved an unprecedented agreement among all political forces”.
But the constitutional council, controlled by the far-right and the right, introduced amendments to the draft that alter its content and bear the stamp of the Republican Party.
The text, which must be ready by November 7 for the vote on December 17, includes an article on “the right to life”, which explicitly says: “The law protects the life of who is unborn,” effectively banning abortion – so far only allowed when the life of the mother is at risk, when the foetus is inviable or when the pregnancy was a result of rape.
Conscientious objection was also given constitutional status, which, according to critics, could further limit access to abortion and open the door for refusals to teach certain curricula such as comprehensive sex education and, more broadly, to exempt objectors from complying with laws that conflicted with their beliefs. Rules saying lists of electoral candidates should be equal parts men and women, included in the draft prepared by the experts, were also weakened, as “equal access” to lists was replaced by “balanced access”. The draft also restricts the right to strike.
The amendments introduced by the right “substantially modify the preliminary draft,” Rivas said. “There is a strong tendency of the Republican Party to include in the constitution contingency issues, articles that are just for nods to populists.”
Examples of these include provisions that remove a tax on houses (which effectively pay only a fraction of high-income owners, and it’s considered vital to fund services in low-income municipalities), cut the number of seats in Congress, speed up the expulsion of irregular immigrants and grant preferred treatment to victims of terrorism. “There is an evident lack of concern on which matters are constitutional or not. It seems they do not care that this constitution is carefully crafted,” Rivas said.
Claudio Fuentes, professor of political science at the Diego Portales University and coordinator of its Constitutional Laboratory, said the proposals were likely to appeal to those taken in by disinformation.
“Cut parliamentary seats? It makes a lot of sense to people because of the anti-political mood,” Fuentes said. “The same goes for removing a real estate tax that today only the richest pay, but which nevertheless makes sense to citizens who aspire to own a house. They support the idea of paying less taxes.”
This strategy seems aimed at the three million new citizens added to the voter roll since voting became compulsory. This demographic is mostly under-40 middle and working class, “aspirational and concerned about their personal progress”, said Fuentes, who researched non-voters in 2020.
But, he warned, their electoral behaviour is unknown. So far, 34% of people intend to vote in favour of the new constitution, according to the latest survey by pollster Cadem. And in July, the Centre of Public Studies revealed that almost 50% of Chileans were “not interested” in the constitutional process.
The trap of constitutional plebiscite
Kast, who successfully tapped rejection to traditional politics, may now suffer its curse by being seen as the responsible authority.
“The strategy of Republicans is to get a constitution [drafted] by Kast, to project him into the presidential race,” Fuentes said. “It’s risky indeed. But his goal, two years before the election, is to be able to say his ideas were embodied in the constitutional draft. If he loses, he will keep Pinochet’s constitution, which suits him. In the end it is a win-win for Kast.”
The constitutional council had the final word and voted on the draft on 30 October.
Its ultimate approval depends on three factors, according to the Republican Party source, and the first is how much “common sense” it has. “Rather than appearing to be left-wing or right-wing, it has to have things that make sense to people,” the source said. The second factor will be whether it is able to engage figures outside the political world, from artists to football players. “This will spark interest – people will want to know what it's all about,” he said. Finally, he acknowledged the government’s own stance could be decisive.
According to sources close to the government, that stance has not yet been defined. The chances of even the government backing a “yes” vote have diminished in recent weeks, due to the right-wing bias of the new draft. It is also unclear whether the Boric administration might expressly campaign against the new constitution or adopt a neutral stance.
Constitutional lawyer Bárbara Sepúlveda – a leader of the Communist Party, one of the ruling coalition forces – told openDemocracy the left must adopt a strategy “that reflects what we think on this process”.
Sepúlveda, a former member of the convention that drafted the failed 2022 constitution, added: “We launched the process without looking at what would come next. We have been left without a narrative.”
The left had an opportunity in the 2019 social unrest, according to Sepúlveda. “There was a sense of solidarity, of empathy, which is highly needed when it comes to proposing a transformational left-wing project, for example in the healthcare or the pensions systems. That momentum has not totally been lost, but it has cooled down.”
While Boric’s government’s reformist agenda is shipwrecked in a Congress without a majority, the failure of the first constitutional process makes it very difficult to remove the “subsidiary state” model enshrined in the Pinochet constitution and still alive in the current draft.
In a sense, it is the last triumph of Pinochetism.
“The far-right does have a narrative,” Sepúlveda said. “It has an idea of what kind of country and society it wants, and its supporters can replicate it. The left’s narrative, despite the social unrest, has remained as too complicated”.
