Chileans will vote today in a second referendum aimed at replacing the dictatorship-era constitution, but analysts say the new proposal is even more conservative than the existing one.

The latest version was designed by the far-right Republican Party after voters rejected an initial progressive version last September that sought to guarantee environmental protection and the right to abortion.

Chilean President Gabriel Boric, a left-wing politician, said last month that this would be his last attempt to reform the constitution, aiming to focus on long-term stability and development.

Opinion polls, which were banned for the last two weeks before the referendum, predict a new rejection of the text.

The process to rewrite the 1980 Constitution, adopted during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, began as an attempt to calm the protests against social inequality that broke out in October 2019. In a 2020 referendum, 80% of voters voted to replace the Constitution.

Four years after the protests, however, enthusiasm has been dampened by the pandemic, inflation and economic stagnation, a growing sense of insecurity and election fatigue, analysts say.

“There is an atmosphere of great disillusionment, of little interest, little motivation, of fatigue regarding the constitutional question,” said political scientist Claudia Heiss of the University of Chile. “People want more fundamental things. They want security, law and order, more police on the streets, a return to normality after a few years of a completely abnormal life,” he added.

Chilean economic growth fell to 2.2% in 2022 and is expected to contract in 2023.

“Further to the Right”

The opposition presented this constitutional consultation as a referendum on Boric, who took advantage of the wave of discontent to be elected Chile’s youngest ever president at the end of 2021, at the age of 35.

Boric, whose approval rating has fallen to around 30%, already suffered a setback in May when the far-right Republican Party won elections to choose members of the commission tasked with rewriting the Constitution.

The 1980 text is seen as the main culprit in making corporations and the elite richer at the expense of the poor and workers.

The first attempt at rewriting included stronger protections for indigenous rights, proposals to protect natural resources such as water, and required women to hold at least half of positions in public institutions.

Heiss said the latest version is “somewhere between the 1980 Constitution and a version even further to the right,” especially when it comes to issues like abortion and public safety.

The new version aims to guarantee the right to life from conception, which experts say could lead to the questioning of existing laws. Abortion was banned in Chile until 2017, when it was allowed in cases of rape, when the woman’s life was in danger or the fetus was declared unviable.

The new version also allows for the deportation, “in the shortest possible time”, of illegal immigrants, with the right blaming Venezuelans who have fled their country’s economic crisis for the increase in crime.

It also deepens the autonomy of schools and makes education possible at home. Instead of a general budget for schools, the state would allocate money to each enrolled student.

Without funding, the desire for “free, quality public education” disappears, said Catalina Lufin, 22, president of the University of Chile Student Federation.

The proposed constitution recognizes indigenous peoples for the first time, who represent 12% of the population, but does not address their requests for greater autonomy.