Chile Started the Votes Counting

Chile began this Sunday afternoon the vote count on a proposal for a new Constitution, where more than 15.4 million citizens were called to vote from 08.00 (11.00 GMT) to 18.00 local time (21.00 GMT) to approve or reject a text drawn up by a body elected at the polls that did not achieve consensus and in which the right and the far right had a majority.

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The Electoral Service preliminar results with almost 28% of votes counted gives to the Against vote a 54.61%, and to the In favor a figure of 45.39%.

This second attempt to have a new constitution to replace the one established in 1980 by the dictatorship Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990), started in September 2022, when a resounding majority rejected in another plebiscite a draft written by a convention of leftist majority that proposed a profound change in the country model.

Polls published over two weeks ago, before the electoral ban, predicted that citizens would vote against the text again. However, experts say that the undecided could have a significant impact.

The president of Chile, Gabriel Boric, said this Sunday after exercising his right to vote in Puntas Arenas in the extreme south of the country that "Beyond any outcome, strengthens our democracy. Chile has demonstrated a strength that we do not have to take for granted, it has shown that the problems we have in society are channelled institutionally and we resolve them peacefully and trusting the people"

Despite being against constitutional change but winning the largest number of seats in the body drafting the new proposal, the far-right Republican Party is playing a significant role in this election, according to analysts, which could lead to hegemony within the conservative spectrum.

More than 39,114 polling stations opened this Sunday to receive the votes of those who must decide whether they are "Against" or "In favor" of the proposed constitution written by the Constitutional Council.