Chile Abolishes Dictatorship-Era Constitution
What started as a protest against rising public transit fares in October 2019 exactly one year ago turned into one of the biggest moments in the history of Chile.
The protest that kicked off in the capital city of Santiago spread like uncontrollable wildfire to the rest of the country with one million people appearing on the streets to protest against a growing range of national reforms over the period of just seven days. Their demands ranged from free higher education and improvements in healthcare to better retirement plans and an end to gender-based violence. The protests continued on for multiple weeks.
Soon after, it was understood by the government and the South American country’s right-wing president Sebastián Piñera that a referendum was the only way to go about these neverending protests and one was scheduled for April 2020. Earlier this year when the virus appeared across the world, the vote was pushed again and again due to safety and hygiene concerns. Another aspect of the protests included a slogan that read “Never Again Without Women”, calling for equal representation via the demand that 50% of the writers of the new constitution should be women.
Last week in October 2020, the referendum finally took place and Chile announced that it would abolish the Pinochet Constitution that had been in place since March 11, 1990. In its place, a convention made up entirely of Chilean citizens would be formed to write the new constitution.
The reason that this is so important is because not only would the convention be made up entirely of citizens instead of parliamentary members, it was conceded by the congress in December 2019 that half of those citizens must be women, establishing a groundbreaking standard for the entire world’s countries and the future constitution conventions. The convention will also include Indigenous seats for the Mapucha peoples.
The Chile protests are proof for the world’s demands for changing reforms and improvement that sustained protests have the ability to bring about the desired results. The next step is choosing the convention members and Santiago demonstrators are already calling out for May 22nd:
This is already quite something pic.twitter.com/mJZliK9dDa
— John Bartlett (@jwbartlett92) October 25, 2020
Following the announcement of the convention news, Chileans took back to the streets to fully celebrate this first step as a victory with the Spanish word ‘RENACE’ appearing over the length of the tallest building, the Telefónica, symbolizing the burial of the regime’s legal framework. In English, the word directly translates to ‘Reborn’.
Stay tuned with Media Quotient Inc. for updates about the upcoming new Chilean citizen convention for the constitution.
Credit: Claudio Santana/Getty Images
