Chile writes a new history: ‘This is an opportunity to design the country we dream of’

On March 11th, history was made in the Chilean city of Valparaiso. Gabriel Boric, a former radical student leader was sworn in as Chile's youngest-ever president, flanked by other student leaders who will now join his cabinet.

The charismatic Boric, famed for his collection of heavy metal merch, extensive tattoos and floppy hair, also made time to meet Tánaiste Leo Varadkar on the same day that the once highly conservative Catholic country put marriage equality on the statute books.

There are a surprising number of parallels with Ireland. For our ambassador there, Paul Gleeson, Chile's story shares many features with our own

For Boric, it has been a rapid rise to the top of one of Latin America's more prosperous yet unequal countries. His savvy campaign echoed much of the rhetoric of his student protest days, with demands that Chile be rebuilt with the concerns of the people at its core.

There are a surprising number of parallels with Ireland. For our ambassador there, Paul Gleeson, Chile’s story shares many features with our own, particularly the “journey from being a once quite Catholic and conservative society to the more progressive, inclusive and multicultural country of today”.

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Street life in Santiago is young and energetic. Graffiti, much of it political, proliferates. Colourful dancers perform for diners at the open-air restaurants, where young and old enjoy the traditional Chilean pisco liquor, a sour for the millennials, served with Coke for the Generation Zs.

After many years of dictatorship, pre-pandemic Chile was the poster child of modernisation in Latin America. New diplomats were told that the story was boring: simply political stability and growth. But Tomás González Olavarría, founder of democracy NGO Tribu, says that stability masked some serious divisions deeply rooted in Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorial regime.

Much of the inequality is blamed on the dictator’s economic policy and constitution, which was partly drafted by the so-called Chicago Boys, US-educated economists who advocated neoliberalism, or widespread deregulation and privatisation.

Critics say the constitutional text means the public sector only intervenes when the private sector has failed. The result is that while Chile’s economic growth has been exceptional at an average rate of 5 per cent per year between 1990 and 2018, inequality is headline-grabbing, with almost 30 per cent of income concentrated in the top 1 per cent of the population. Natural resources are extracted in the rural north and south and profits end up in wealthy Santiago barrios, leaving local areas impoverished and sometimes without clean water.

Social uprising

These divisions erupted onto the streets in late 2019, following a campaign by students against metro fare rises. Protests escalated into a social uprising, or estallido social, which saw more than 1.2 million people take to the streets of Santiago to protest social inequality, demanding President Sebastián Piñera’s resignation.

'Chile was the cradle of neoliberalism, and Chile will be its grave,' was one of the protesters' chants

“Chao, Chicago” (“Bye, Chicago”) says typical graffiti that now covers the streets of Santiago and elsewhere across the country. “Chile was the cradle of neoliberalism, and Chile will be its grave,” was one of the protesters’ chants.

That protest shook the ruling centre and centre-right parties that had long held power in the country. It led to the election of a constitutional convention to rewrite the Pinochet-era constitution.

For the first time in Chile’s history, equal numbers of women and men were elected to the convention, and there is also a quota for native Chileans. The presence of independent lists meant many non-political party candidates took up places. Some were long-standing activists and academics; others were street activists politically engaged by the uprising. Few had political experience and they were given only 12 months to agree and write an entirely new constitution.

The task is enormous, as are the divisions. Less than 5 per cent are from Auguste Conte’s far-right party, and even with the centre-right government parties that have long dominated Chilean politics, the right of centre makes up less than 30 per cent of the total. Thus, the centre, centre-left and left have the numbers to clear proposals by the necessary majority of 66 per cent for each proposal.

All voices

Amaya Alvez Marin, a law professor at the University of Concepción, has worked 15-hour days, seven days a week, and is very much looking forward to going back to her life writing books. But now, she says, is the moment to rebuild Chile.

“For the first time in our history, we have a new democratic paradigm where all voices are heard, rather than simply a single male elite. Women are equal to men, native people who have been excluded for centuries have representation,” she says.

“This will probably be the only opportunity we will have to design the country that we dream of, and that we did not allow ourselves before.”

Gaspar Domínguez, a medic from the south whose brother is an academic in Queen’s University Belfast, points to the painting hanging in the grand hall of the assembly building: Spanish conquistadors on horseback with natives begging for help at their feet. He notes how historic it is to have Mapuche woman Elisa Loncón Antile as first president of the convention.

For Alvez, Domínguez and others, the dream includes the human right to water and housing, as well as environmental protection; indeed, a vote in favour of animal rights was passed in the convention just last week. The focus is also on the decentralisation of political power as well as an updated understanding of human rights.

The task is mammoth. Much is in the hands of 114 disparate and often warring members of the convention. Success will be down to the skills of the current vice- presidents of the convention, who include Giovanni Grandón Caro, a former school bus driver and kindergarten teacher. Known as Pikachu in reference to her prominent arm tattoo, Caro was a leader at the protests and is now focused on making sure ordinary Chileans have their voices heard now and in the future amid the noise.

The process is convoluted, as one might expect in a country as wedded to its rules and bureaucracy as Chile. The assembly, housed in the beautiful original congress buildings in the heart of Santiago, votes on up to 150 proposals an hour, with the vast majority never seeing the light of day. For example, one day last week, some 400 environmental proposals were reduced to six.

Domínguez has his eyes firmly on the upcoming referendum campaign. There are myriad problems for the centre-right politicians in congress, but a defeat is also an opportunity to give the newly inaugurated Boric a bloody nose.

Already the battle lines for the referendum are being drawn, and in this ultra-centralised and polarised country, fear of change is palpable.

The extent of the issues means a radical rewriting of the constitution is inevitable. Of course, such a large-scale challenge means there is plenty that any individual will not favour.

Already signs of the No vote are emerging. For some, and especially the business community who fear even more red tape, the regional focus is a problem, and many Chileans fear an entirely separate bureaucracy essentially paving the way for federalism.

A vote to allow separate civil law in native areas in line with their culture is met with particularly fierce antipathy

For others, the problem is rights being afforded to native Mapuche and Quecha peoples, who make up some 14 per cent of the population. A vote to allow separate civil law in native areas in line with their culture is met with particularly fierce antipathy and allegations that native people will be put first – a somewhat unlikely scenario given the depredations that many live in currently.

Indeed, some gender equality proposals appear to be met with similar concerns that women might be prioritised over men.

Perhaps the main No argument is that it is all too much, that the process should be gradual. However, for the activists and those on the streets who voted 80-20 in favour of drafting a new constitution, this would be a betrayal; simply a way for the elite to continue its dominance and to deny fundamental social and economic rights to large swathes of the population.

Message of hope

The Yes side wants to focus on a message of hope that it is a new spring for all Chileans of every background. Some, such as Grandó, are also battling to have provisions for referendums to update the text or consult citizens in advance of future changes, to ensure that this is a living document, a constitution for “the people”.

Gleeson says there is huge interest in the Yes, Equality and other campaigns in Ireland, which overcame difficult political issues and produced recommendations that the electorate went on to endorse.

“Once a final text is agreed, attention will shift quickly to the referendum which has to follow – and, of course, such referendums and the communication challenges they present are something which we have lots of experience of in Ireland,” he says.

Strolling through downtown Barrio Yungay, close to the home Boric has chosen between streets named Freedom and Hope, where traditional homes and graffitied facades line cobbled streets, the aspiration is palpable. It is a far cry from the prosperous northeastern suburbs where the outgoing president, billionaire Sebastián Piñera, has a large home.

For now, the vote is slated for September, but that could coincide with the anniversary of Pinochet’s bloody coup on September 11th, 1973. There is hope it could be in October, the Chilean spring and close to the anniversary of the uprising.

Jane Suiter is director of the Institute for Future Media Democracy and Society at Dublin City University