Shortly after a well-planned communist coup on October 18, 2019, an event that led to widespread burning, destruction, and crime in Chile’s major cities, President Piñera bowed to pressures being handed to him by the extreme Left. Among the items he offered to change was the nation’s Constitution.
This is how a long process to change the Chilean’s basic political document began. First off, it was not something supported by the people. In fact, 62% of citizens categorically rejected changing their Constitution in an “exit plebiscite” conducted in September 2022. However, just a few days after handing the Left a stunning defeat, a new (and unlawful) effort began. Ignoring the people’s mandate, current President Boric met with then-president Piñera to craft a new constitutional text. This one will end on December 17, 2023, along with another plebiscite.
The new Constitution proposal, drafted by a committee of 24 “experts” and approved by 50 constitutional counselors elected by vote last May, is closer in design to those of communist-led Nicaragua and Venezuela than to the current Constitution, enacted in 1980, which brought Chile prosperity for nearly 40 years. Incredibly, the new Constitution also carries a chapter entitled “Environmental Protection, Sustainability and Development” (chapter XVI) that contains eight articles raising “climate change” to a constitutional mandate — something never done by any nation.
The language employed in the document is as much “vague” as it is “politically correct.” It contains mandates such as “the State will promote justice in environmental matters” without providing a clear definition as to what this means, leaving it to the courts, which are packed with liberal justices, to decide. It will strongly impact industrial development.
The new Constitution also contains this gem: “the promotion of an energy matrix compatible with environmental protection and sustainability.” This will likely be employed to put an end to hydroelectric generation, the most abundant, clean, and affordable source of electricity in Chile. The Left has already succeeded in decommissioning a hydropower plant project called HidroAysén, twice the world’s most efficient, replacing it with a thermo-solar plant 30 times more expensive. Thanks to the new proposed Constitution, renewables will also be imposed and jettison other energy sources such as coal, gas, and oil, making electricity prices, if doing so, dramatically increase together with unemployment, energy, poverty, and the loss of more heavy industries to China.
And then there’s this zinger: “the State will implement mitigation and adaptation measures in a timely, rational and fair manner before the effects of climate change.” This will give the state license to impose climate change measures in a speedy fashion, without much oversight – causing more bureaucracy, more taxes, more regulations, more tyranny, and more misery for a country already impoverished by successive Leftist governments.
In this latest attempt to “transform” the nation, with weak or no opposition from a political right that seems to suffer from Stockholm Syndrome, Chile will be irremediably thrown down once again, setting itself up to undergo an economic collapse that will cause widespread devastation.
On October 30, Chile had the chance to put an end to this illegal process — forcibly imposed four years ago — if only 4 out of the 33 right-wing counselors had rejected the constitutional Leftist proposal. Not a single one did. Thus, the last opportunity Chileans will have to reject their own economic death sentence will be via a final plebiscite on December 17. Fortunately, most serious surveys are giving victory to the “reject” option by 51% to 34%. Time will tell if this holds.
If once more the far-Left succeeds, then the times of prosperity when Chile proudly exhibited thirty years of being the world’s top nation in poverty reduction will vanish forever. That, along with the beautiful words uttered by Bill Clinton on the eve of his visit to Chile in 1998 that once upon a time were true:
“Chile is the most precious jewel of the Latin American Crown”.