Though the rejection camp had 61.9 percent support compared to 38.1 percent for approval when 99 percent of the votes had been counted after Sunday's referendum, most Chileans favor changing the dictatorship-era constitution. For in 2020, just under 80 percent of Chileans voted in favor of changing the country’s constitution, and in 2021, they elected delegates to a constitutional convention.
The proposed document was the first in the world to be written by a convention split equally between male and female delegates, but critics said it was too long, lacked clarity, and went too far in some of its measures, which included characterizing Chile as a plurinational state, establishing autonomous Indigenous territories, and prioritizing the environment and gender parity.
“The constitution that was written now leans too far to one side and does not have the vision of all Chileans,” Roberto Briones, 41, said after voting in Chile’s capital of Santiago. “We all want a new constitution, but it needs to have a better structure.”
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