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Chile Rejects New ‘Woke’ Constitution

by Toby Young
5 September 2022 9:49 AM

The people of Chile have rejected a new ‘woke’ constitution that would have compelled governments to prioritise tackling climate change and required women to hold at least 50% of jobs in official institutions. BBC News has more.

Voters in Chile have overwhelmingly rejected a new constitution which was due to replace the one drawn up under Gen Augusto Pinochet’s military rule.

In a referendum, almost 62% voted against the progressive draft.

The margin of the defeat is much larger than opinion polls had suggested.

Chile’s President Gabriel Boric, who had backed the new constitution, said he would work with Congress and civil society to come up with a “new constitutional process”.

“We have to listen to the voice of the people” who, he said, had clearly not been satisfied with the proposal put forward by the constitutional convention.

He said he would continue working to reach a proposal that would “fill us with confidence and unite us all”.

The process to replace Chile’s military rule era constitution started three years ago after mass protests rocked the nation, which is normally seen as a haven of stability in the region.

Almost 80% of Chileans voted in favour of replacing the old constitution in a referendum in October 2020.

But the new document, drafted by a constitutional convention whose members had been chosen by voters, proved too radical for many.

It would have declared Chile a ‘plurinational’ state, recognising the rights of Chile’s indigenous populations – which make up about 13% of the population – to their lands and resources.

The now-rejected draft would also have changed many of Chile’s institutions, such as replacing the Senate with a Chamber of Regions.

It also included key demands by women’s groups such as as the right to abortion and requiring by law that women hold at least 50% of positions in official institutions.

While opinion polls had predicted a ‘no’ vote, the overwhelming rejection – 61.9% against compared with 38.1% in favour of the new constitution – is a slap in the face for President Boric.

The 36-year-old leader was swept into power after the mass protests and his youthful, left-wing cabinet had promised to overhaul Chile’s institutions.

But almost six months into his presidency and after the resounding defeat of the constitution which he backed, he is now expected to make changes to his cabinet to bring in more moderate and politically experienced politicians.

Worth reading in full.

Tags: ChileGender ParityReferendumWoke Gobbledegook

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22 Comments
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EppingBlogger
EppingBlogger
2 years ago

Well done Chile!

89
0
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
2 years ago

It’s quite possible there was some reasonable stuff in there but they’ve obviously overreached – huge own goal.

Surely a mistake to try and cover too much. The US remains the model to follow – the main aim was to set out the limits of government/state power.

38
-8
RW
RW
2 years ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

Considering that all of the the woke nonsense emanates from the USA, that’s a very dubious claim.

18
-3
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
2 years ago
Reply to  RW

Not sure how that follows. I don’t see the role of a constitution as preventing “woke nonsense” but setting out a workable structure of government that strikes the right balance between the powers and reach of the state and those of the individual, which will undoubtedly be abused and come under attack and may fail, but it’s worth trying, and IMO the US is the best example and the one that has endured and provided the best outcome. Of course the US isn’t perfect, or how we’d like it to be, but it’s notable to me as the rich “liberal” “democracy” with the most robust active movement pushing back against wokeism and its ilk. The political right in the US, which has mainly provided resistance against covid folly and evil, is mainstream both in politics and media. Not so much in the UK and continental Western and Central Europe.

6
-1
RW
RW
2 years ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

It doesn’t follow at all, it’s just a fact: This is a genuinely American phenomenon and is mostly about inherently American issues which don’t really exist in other parts of the world, except insofar ardent fans of the so-called American left are cosplaying what their idols do.

Taking a bit of a broader perspective, the USA is also traditionally a very aggressive power principially hell-bent on destroying all political systems which differ from the American one, except that this doesn’t always work and/ or sometimes turns out to cost more money and effort than the American public is willing to spend on it (eg, in Afghanistan).

Last edited 2 years ago by RW
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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
2 years ago
Reply to  RW

My point was about the best approach to construct a constitution, or what I think one should contain/focus on, as it seemed to me they had made the mistake in Chile of chucking in all sorts of stuff that’s currently trendy that IMO has no place in a document/structure that’s meant to endure over time. Nothing to do with wokery per se.

As far as the USA goes, they are indeed not overly pleasant to their enemies nor to those that are not close allies. More pleasant to their own citizens. This they share with most great powers now and throughout history (though many of them were not that nice to their own people either).

5
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RW
RW
2 years ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

The USA isn’t exactly pleasant to their allies, either. Eg Eisenhower breaking the neck of the British empire by siding with Egypt during the so-called Suez crisis. But that’s sort-of besides my point which is still that the woke movement is as American as hamburgers and black friday. That’s a political movement the political organization of the USA gave birth to. Which is not exactly an argument for combatting it by aping this political organization.

8
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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
2 years ago
Reply to  RW

“ That’s a political movement the political organization of the USA gave birth to.”

Well, correlation is not causation, and I don’t really see wokeism as anything especially American or a consequence of anything in their structure of government or bill of rights. They tend to have more extremes there than in many other places. I’m not sure why they seem to have wokeism there so badly. Maybe a follow on from the legacy of slavery and racism then anti-racism, a victim culture developed/was encouraged/exploited. A big topic I think. But as I said, the opposition there is more robust – by comparison we’re just rolling over here. I’d still rather live in the USA than anywhere else except England, though these days that’s not saying much.

Regarding US allies, I would rather be an ally of the US than China, though that’s not saying much either.

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Hugh
Hugh
2 years ago
Reply to  RW

But not because of the constitution.

0
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TheBasicMind
TheBasicMind
2 years ago

In Chile they are sufficiently poor, they are more prone to properly question and think about these things before spending money. It seems we in the UK won’t have to worry about woke politics for much longer either.

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Marcus Aurelius knew
Marcus Aurelius knew
2 years ago
Reply to  TheBasicMind

And of course, when you write “poor” you’re probably referring to so-called “public finances” being poor, in other words, the government is not effective at the taxing the people. I would hazard a guess that regular Chileans are better than many in “The West” at preserving their wealth and keeping “their government’s” hands off it, and as such, there is much more of a culture of being sceptical about governments, and they are more practised at making better financial decisions (and decisions in general) for themselves.

Measures of a country’s wealth are an essentially arbitrary thing, because they will never properly take individual wealth into account; individuals are not citizens of a country by any natural mechanism.

And “poor” countries will have less well-developed mechanisms to measure it anyway. And the measures come from governments.

As Oscar Wilde said, “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.”

Do my layperson’s ramblings make sense?

Last edited 2 years ago by Marcus Aurelius knew
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wokeman
wokeman
2 years ago

It got firmly rejected, but do not presume they won’t keep voting on some proposals till this woke bilge is passed.

27
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AethelredTheReadier
AethelredTheReadier
2 years ago
Reply to  wokeman

To be honest, there did seem to be some bits that might have been good for indigenous people who get a pretty raw deal in South America. The trouble is that the young new Prez wanted to appeal to everyone and I suspect there is a large contingent of highly conservative voters in Chile who still have pictures of Generalissimo Pinochet on their dining room walls and couldn’t stand this sort of lefty posturing. Still, they’ll work on a new draft and try and ram it home in another year.
They serve great ice creams in Santiago – I managed to drop mine three steps out of the ice cream parlour because it was such an enormous serving, a mini-Andes Mountain Range of ice cream.

5
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
2 years ago

The Chileans need to prepare to vote again so that next time they can return the correct result.

21
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AethelredTheReadier
AethelredTheReadier
2 years ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

This is a new sort of democratic process where you keep hitting the round peg repeatedly until finally it assumes a squarish shape and slots into the square hole. There…done. Democracy in action.

12
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
2 years ago
Reply to  AethelredTheReadier

That’s it exactly.

2
0
Lockdown Sceptic
Lockdown Sceptic
2 years ago

The tyranny of Pridehttps://www.spiked-online.com/2022/09/04/the-tyranny-of-pride/It’s time for a fightback against rainbow authoritarianism.

 Yellow Boards By The Road   
For the love of humanity … My patience is running thin for turkeys that vote for a fifth Christmas. .  

Tuesday 6th September 11am to 12pm  
Yellow Boards 
Junction A321 Lower Wokingham Rd & 
B3348 Dukes Ride 
Crowthorne RG45 6NZ

Wednesday 7th September 3pm to 4pm
Yellow Boards 
Junction B3034 Forest Road &
A330 Hatchett Lane 
Ascot SL5 8QE

Stand in the Park Sundays 10.30am to 11.30am – make friends & keep sane 

Wokingham 
Howard Palmer Gardens Sturges Rd RG40 2HD   

Bracknell  
South Hill Park, Rear Lawn, RG12 7PA

Telegram http://t.me/astandintheparkbracknell

4
-1
Hugh
Hugh
2 years ago

62% reject poverty and discrimination, shock horror!

(I wonder if the UK will be recognised as a “plurinational” state, with the rights of the indigenous populations to their land and resources recognised?).

Last edited 2 years ago by Hugh
7
0
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
2 years ago
Reply to  Hugh

I don’t think it will be too long before the Albanian brothers claim, via some convoluted, Orwellian and historical chicanery their indigenous rights to these islands.

5
-1
Bella Donna
Bella Donna
2 years ago

Thank goodness there is at least one country with its head screwed on right.

4
0
RTSC
RTSC
2 years ago

Let me guess …. 36 yr old President Boric, who himself cannot possibly be very experienced at that age, is a WEF Young Leader?

5
0
AethelredTheReadier
AethelredTheReadier
2 years ago
Reply to  RTSC

I’m not sure that he is…I did a search, several searches, and couldn’t find a connection. Still he’s young enough to be invited in…

2
0

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