Piñera stumbles as Chile elects its Constitutional Convention

This past weekend, Chileans cast ballots for the 155 delegates to the Constitutional Convention that—per the result of a national plebiscite held last October, in which over 78 percent of voters opted to commence the process of constitutional reform—will be tasked with replacing the 1980 constitution promulgated by the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet.

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Chile’s Constitutional Convention elections: institutional uncertainty and the long shadow of October 2019

Two things stood out when Chileans went to the polls for last October’s national plebiscite on the drafting of a new constitution. First, nearly 80 percent voted in favor of commencing the process to eventually draft a new constitution, signifying a fairly broad popular consensus that the path toward fixing the country’s ills would be an institutional one—quite a relief after the experience of the 2019 protests. Second, there was a high voter turnout: over 7.5 million Chileans, more than 50 percent of eligible voters, cast a ballot, marking the highest turnout since 2009 (in the middle of a pandemic, no less).

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Patricio Navia: Una hoja de ruta para la derecha

Ahora que parece haber finalmente quedado en claro que el gobierno del Presidente Piñera ya se acabó, la pregunta que reina en el ambiente es cuál es el norte que ahora guiará a los partidos de derecha. Después del rotundo fracaso del intento por construir un proyecto exitoso a cargo de Piñera y alejada del legado de Pinochet, la derecha chilena se encuentra sin líder.

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Could two wrongs make a right?

Enabling early pension withdrawals proved to be a suboptimal policy in Chile. Yet for other Latin American countries, early pension withdrawals should not be immediately discounted as a viable policy option.

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Chinese advances in Chile

Both the positive aspects and the limits of Chile’s relationship with China merit further attention by other nations in the Western Hemisphere, both in terms of how to achieve benefits from engaging with China through strong, transparent institutions and what to guard against.

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