The extreme right surprised and will lead the process of constitution of Chile

Even the best forecasts did not predict such pleasant results for The Chilean extreme right in the elections constitutional councilors held this Sunday: The Republican Party, which advocates preserving the current Constitution, won 22 seats out of 50 at stake (99% counted), becoming the party with the most votes nationally and doubling the traditional right in seats.

“We can breathe a little easier today,” said their leader, Jose Antonio Castwho lost to President Gabrijel Borić in the 2021 presidential elections and is a convinced defender of the neoliberal model established by the military dictatorship (1973-1990).

With 35.4% of the votes, affected most of Chile’s 16 regionsin its traditional strongholds in the south, in the north, and even captured fiefdoms governed by the left, such as the Valparaíso region.

These 22 parliamentary seats will enable him to use the power of veto in the constitutional body: «In this scenario, it is most likely that the Constitution resulting from this process will not be an enabling constitution. It is a guarantee of the status quo and the strengthening of the presidential options of the Republicans,” Claudia Heiss, director of the Faculty of Public Administration of the University of Chile, told EFE.

Republicans repeated surprised which they already gave in the 2021 elections, when they won the first presidential round and got 16 members of parliament in the legislative bodies (15 representatives and one senator, although three of them left the party). But now, for the first time, he will lead the body responsible for the discussion and adoption of the new Constitution.

“There is a distribution of power that is different from what we thought and that changes everything: the constitutional debate will change because the issues that are contained in the Constitution and that will be important for the Government will depend on the Republican Party,” he said. analyst Kenneth Bunker from the Tech Global think tank told EFE.

He overwhelming triumph of Caste It completely changes the balance of power of the new Constitutional Council against the previous Convention, dominated by progressivism and the majority of independent candidates who, unlike today’s elections, were able to appear on their lists.

For the deputy director of the Institute of Social Studies, Rodrigo Pérez, one of the keys will be whether the ultra-right will “decide to emphasize their loudest side or establish a policy of seeking allies,” he told Efe.

Republicans lashed out at the rest of the opposition during the campaign, although in recent days Kast – who left the traditional right-wing coalition of more than 20 years as too moderate – has signaled a desire to bet on a more dialogical style.

After the rejection of the first constitutional proposal in September, unlike the extreme right, the traditional right decided from the beginning to continue the constituting itinerary. Now, according to analysts, the conservative Chile Seguro coalition is weakened and at a crossroads between taking the extreme positions of the Republicans or adopting its own more moderate profile.

The deputy of the Independent Democratic Union (UDI), Juan Antonio Coloma, the bloc’s main formation, acknowledged that it was a “victory for the opposition” led by the Republicans: “We will not make the mistakes of the left in the previous process,” he asserted.

For Rodrigo Pérez, “the leaders of the traditional right do not realize a project that appeals to large majorities and face a complicated mix: building an identity with which to connect with voters and understanding that moderation alone is not enough to be a political project.

Alberto Hurtado University political scientist Federica Sánchez, for her part, qualified the victory of the Republicans and asserted that, although the extreme right gained the right of veto in the constitutional council, the leader of the opposition in Congress is still the traditional right. .

A global phenomenon?

The phenomenon of the Republican Party in Chile is not equivalent to other far-right phenomena in the world, according to Bunker, and – according to him – more corresponds to the “dispute of factions” of the Chilean right that are fighting for hegemony in space. However, for political scientist Octavio Avendaño from the University of Chile, there is similarities between the Chilean extreme right and their counterparts in other countries, especially in relation to issues related to insecurity and the migration crisis, albeit with elements from the country itself. “The Republican Party is also suffering the consequences of a social outbreak and a prolonged economic crisis that creates insecurity and a sense of unease among citizens who are increasingly calling for order and stability,” Avedaño concluded.