Good news from Chile, but mandatory civic responsibility is not a lasting foundation
Even some of the most radical political groups pretend to respect the “voice” of the people, and even to represent it. But then, what comes through the minds of leftwing Chileans who are staging rallies and burning buses in Santiago de Chile after the plebiscite on Constitutional Reform showed Rejection of their draft winning with 62% against Approval with 38%? I do not know, but this raises the question of the motivation of small groups against what is called the “silent majority”.
Chile is the country with the highest quality of institutions in Latin America. They were put to the test in this national poll. A great majority rejected the draft, more than all those who cared to vote in the presidential election that resulted in Boric’s victory. According to CIPER, Centro de Investigación Periodística, the reasons for rejection among voters in popular neighborhoods were “fear of government expropriation of houses (?¿), that savings at pension funds would not be heritable, the country would end up divided, punishment to the present government and rejection of abortion.
Who inflicted the fear? The Constitutional Assembly itself. Such a rejection among popular voters means there is a strong sense of property rights and essentially gives us an answer to a question I myself raised before the polling: Are Chileans willing to commit political suicide? Well, it looks like they do not. But nevertheless, I feel some bitter taste with what happened. These same Chileans who saved their country from collapsing in a nightmare…, went to vote only because it was mandatory? Half of them did not care when the Assembly members were elected and they allowed such a kaleidoscopic sample of members, who ended up writing what they have now rejected.
That they did is kind of easy to understand, what still seems to me more difficult is to understand why they stayed home last time. Did they now vote because it was mandatory or because they sensed the real threat coming? I do not know.
Mandatory civic responsibility is not a lasting foundation even for a high institutional quality country.