On July 4^th, Chile’s President Gabriel Boric Font received a new constitutional draft. This new draft is intended to replace the country’s original Magna Carta, which was written during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. The constitution’s ultimate fate lies with the Chilean people; Boric issued a mandate calling for a referendum on September 4^th, where voting will be obligatory.

“Chile was built upon discriminatory values that saw Indigenous people and other ethnicities … as second-class citizens,” one political scientist said. Racism and classism are intensely entwined with the country’s current political systems, so the completion of the new constitutional draft is a monumental step in addressing neoliberalism and inequities in Chile.

The new draft is “an ecological and equal constitution with social rights at its core,” head of the constituent assembly Maria Elisa Quinteros said. Legal protections for Indigenous peoples and a greater right to abortion are just some of the changes made in the new document. “The Constitutional Convention paves the way to the solution of historical conflicts related to the dispossession that Indigenous peoples have suffered,” Rosa Catrileo agreed. Catrileo is the representative of the Mapuche people, the largest Indigenous group in Chile.

The demands for a new constitution arose from Chile’s 2019 demonstrations. Protesters rallied against the country’s growing inequality and elitism as “workers, students, pensioners, feminists, Indigenous people, and other progressives paralyzed the country for weeks,” associate professor of politics Jennifer M. Piscopo and professor of politics Peter M. Siavelis wrote in an article for foreignpolicy.com. Following the protests, in 2020, the majority of Chilean citizens voted for a new constitution to be written by citizen delegates. Then in May 2021, citizens voted to choose representatives for the Constitutional Convention.

The constitutional rewriting process that followed was confusing and new to constituents, and many parties attempted to exploit that confusion. Nonetheless, in July 2022, the Constitutional Convention was able to complete the new draft and submit it to President Boric.

“We should feel proud that during the deepest crisis … in decades that our country has lived through, we Chileans have chosen more democracy, not less,” Boric said in his address to the capital of Santiago.

By creating a new constitution that represents the people and offers greater social rights, Chile offers an example of democracy in progress. Constitutions that do not support or protect their people can and must be rewritten. Rather than relying on a pre-dated document, the people should be able to push for the creation of a more just and contemporary constitution.

The vote on September 4^th will determine the fate of the country’s marginalized and vulnerable populations. It is fundamental to Chile’s democracy and the upholding of justice that this new constitution is voted in.