On Sunday 4 September 2022, Chilean voters convincingly rejected their country’s proposed new constitution. In a straight ‘approve’ or ‘reject’ referendum, reject won by a landslide 62 per cent, much to the dismay of human, indigenous & environmental rights activists and left-wing groups.

The new constitution would have enshrined indigenous and environmental rights and the right to a free education into Chilean law as well as overhauling an increasingly substandard and neoliberal health system. Chile’s current constitution was enacted by General Augusto Pinochet in 1980 during his brutal 17-year dictatorship.

Responding to the result President Gabriel Boric has called for a meeting with all political parties to rewrite the proposed constitution. He tweeted in an address to the nation that, ‘The desire for political change and dignity requires our political institutions and actors to work harder with respect, dialogue and tenderness until we arrive at a proposal that represents us all. We are headed there. Long live democracy. Long live Chile.’

After widespread protests in 2019, nearly 80 per cent of the population voted to change the constitution in 2020. Sunday’s disappointing conclusion has left many campaigners wondering how and why the proposed new constitution fell short.

Fake news

From the outset, misinformation played a large role in distorting the aims of the new constitution and swayed public opinion against it. Accusations against individuals involved in the constitutional process consistently flooded social media networks while the articles in the constitution themselves were directly targeted in the weeks preceding the vote. Many of the female and indigenous members of the convention were subjected to a flurry of hate across social media platforms.

Fake news became a defining feature of the ‘rechazo’ (reject) campaign which, in turn, the mainstream Chilean media was more than happy to amplify for clicks and views. One such story, propagated by far-right politician Felipe Kast from the Unión Demócrata Independiente (UDI), claimed that abortions would be legalised up to 9 months of pregnancy. Other ‘half-truths’ circulating on Tik Tok, Instagram and Twitter were that private property would be expropriated, insurance funds could not be inherited, and that uniformed police would be abolished. An early 2022 survey found that 58 per cent of Chileans had been exposed to some form of misinformation.

Chilean newspaper El Mercurio operates a network of 19 regional dailies and 32 radio stations across the country. Despite small shifts toward the centre since Chile’s transition to democracy, it remains ideologically right wing and has consistently undermined the constitutional process. It’s worth noting that media ownership is firmly in the hands of those that benefitted from Pinochet’s regime and the accompanying economic model. Just two commercial groups own the majority of the printed media (El Mercurio and COPEA).

The ‘enemy within’

Chile is currently the only Latin American country that, to date, does not recognise its indigenous people. The new constitution would have provided a major breakthrough, making Chile a plurinational state. The articles contained in the proposed constitution were, however, not enough to mobilise the widespread support of the Mapuche population.

During Boric’s presidential campaign in December 2021, he visited Araucanía (Wallmapu) in Southern Chile, the ancestral domain of the Mapuche. Boric told the Chilean press ‘militarisation is the wrong path. We must seek dialogue within a historical perspective. This conflict won’t be solved within the remit of “public order”; we must restore confidence and talk about the territorial restoration of the Mapuche nation’.

But just months into the new administration the government, who were clearly in the ‘apruebo’ camp, reneged on their promises and on 3 May 2022, troops were deployed in Araucanía. In late August, Mapuche leader Hector Llaitul and his son Ernesto, from Mapuche autonomous group Coordinadora Arauco Malleco (CAM) were arrested for their political doctrine of indigenous liberation. These events have fed into the Pinochetista narrative of ‘the enemy within’ that Mapuche communities have had to contend with since the start of the dictatorship and, once again, have led to further tensions between the Mapuche and the state.

Apruebo’s flaws

Along with the confusing stance regarding indigenous people and the constant scourge of fake news, the ‘apruebo’ (approve) campaign relied on people’s willingness to read the proposed text and their ability to compare it with the previous constitution. The whole campaign was vastly underfunded compared to the ‘rechazo’ campaign that had the support of big business, and a political class that stood to lose their privilege had the referendum been won.

Marianna, 36, an ‘apruebo’ voter from Santiago reflects that ‘the rechazo campaign was more effective in its reach… it simplified the articles in the text and infused terror in those people on the centrist spectrum, or who are less politicised, many of whom may have not voted previously. We must also consider that Chile has a super conservative constitution, and the new proposal was perhaps way too progressive and the jump [between the two] too large.’

What is undeniable is that this loss is a huge set-back for Chile’s hard-won social progress and has left many wondering, what next?

Carole Concha Bell is a PhD student at King’s College, London and freelance writer.

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