Chilean election thread (?)

[Torco]

sorry if it was a bit rambly. but yeah, "ancapitstan gives itself the most progressive constitution in the world" is a much better news story than "thanks to fake news et al rich oligarchs win yet again". the germans made a nice headline out of it, though, "people celebrate not getting rights" or somesuch. hilarious.

in recent news, the right wing parties, which had promised that if they won would remain committed to a new constitution, recently issued a declaration amounting to "yes, new constitution... there are the conditions: nothing actually changes" so, yeah. again, chile is the country where a nice thing could have happened.

[Ares Land]

No problem about the rambling; I believe these things are rambling by nature.

I think everyone should pay attention to Chile and do so without any First World condescension. Pinochet is still a role model for a lot of people and enforcing neoliberalism through the constitution is something that happens everywhere (though not on the same degree.)

[sangi39]

The result of the constitutional reform referendum in Chile has been used over here in the UK in interviews with some people (I forget which MPs, but I'm sure one was a former Labour MP in Blair's cabinet) as a way to suggest that electoral reform might not be worth pursuing, which is more or less what was said after the results of our own electoral reform referendum

I can see the argument that electoral reform in and of itself might not solve all the problems that currently exist in the UK political system, but to use the Chilean result to support not chasing after electoral reform at all seems a bit like "well, of course I'm all for it in theory, but you can easily get results you don't want, just like in Chile, so we should be careful*" rather than acknowledging what those other issues actually are, e.g. lobbying, who controls what media, what those media are being used to say, what information people are getting access to and how, even down to things like political education (why are they believing some information over other information even though the information they believe might be less credible?), and then presenting potential solutions to those issues as well

[Torco]

It's convinced me somewhat that perhaps electoral politics is too rigged to be useful. Things happened out of protest, and ceased happening when the votes channeled that energy. But my own conclusion is less expansive.

I've run some numbers out of the electoral service (you know, the guys that count the votes), and I've becomed entirely convinced that the vast difference between the entry and exit plebiscites is to do with mandatory voting: not to get all statistical, but basically the correlation of determination (r^2) at the comuna level (borough or county type thing) between the increase in the probability of voting and the increase in the probability of voting rechazo (reject the new constitution) is .8, i.e. to a first approximation, everyone who did not vote in plebiscite 1 but voted in plebiscite 2 voted reject. the probability of voting apruebo was totally flat, and did not change between plebiscite 1 and plebiscite 2. So yeah, unscientifically said, the folks who voted because it was mandatory voted reject (or annulled their vote, annulling grew greatly too, and along the same lines).

So, yeah, my take is that as expected, mandatory voting is a way to dramatically increase the influentiability of the electorate: the people who vote because they have to are more influentiable by campaigning that the ones that vote because they want to.

[Torco]

in more chilean news, recently the politicians passed a law making voting compulsory overall, and the new constitution, according to an agreement between most of the parties which, will be written by a team of 24 "experts" designated by both chambers of parliament, vetted by 14 more such designated experts, and there'll be a council of 50 people elected according to the rules of senate voting: the votes of people in remote regions are worth 5 to 20 times more than the votes of people in, say, the capital. they will have no capacity to do anything other than approve or reject the result: this result will then be plebiscited under compulsory.

[doctor shark]

in more chilean news, recently the politicians passed a law making voting compulsory overall, and the new constitution, according to an agreement between most of the parties which, will be written by a team of 24 "experts" designated by both chambers of parliament, vetted by 14 more such designated experts, and there'll be a council of 50 people elected according to the rules of senate voting: the votes of people in remote regions are worth 5 to 20 times more than the votes of people in, say, the capital. they will have no capacity to do anything other than approve or reject the result: this result will then be plebiscited under compulsory.

Wait, wasn't voting previously compulsory before a certain time? (Or am I misremembering things about Chile?)

Anyways, this is a bit of a roundabout method for a convention, but who knows if this'll be more successful. When would the next referendum for the constitution take place?

[bradrn]

in more chilean news, recently the politicians passed a law making voting compulsory overall, and the new constitution, according to an agreement between most of the parties which, will be written by a team of 24 "experts" designated by both chambers of parliament, vetted by 14 more such designated experts, and there'll be a council of 50 people elected according to the rules of senate voting: the votes of people in remote regions are worth 5 to 20 times more than the votes of people in, say, the capital. they will have no capacity to do anything other than approve or reject the result: this result will then be plebiscited under compulsory.

I haven’t been following this… how come they’re still trying to make a new constitution? As good an idea as that sounds, I thought it was pretty much dead after the last attempt.

[Ares Land]

I don't know if my impression is correct, but the process seems designed so that the new constitution stays a bit on the conservative side and doesn't rock the boat too much.

[Torco]

voting *used* to be compulsory in chile, as one of the various authoritarian enclaves of the political system alongisde, say, pinochet being senator for life, or the military having veto power over the laws. Then, it became voluntary, and we had politics for a while. now it has been made compulsory again, to widespread acclaim. chileans seem to love losing rights. the next referendum should be by the end of next year. the designated people will write it, though, so it's possible it'll just be a copy of the pinochet constitution. far as I see it, scenarios are:

* the designated "experts" write an ancapistani-fascist constitution, i.e. a constitution written by and for the UDI, RN and Republican parties (the right wing). you know, like the 1980ies, but updated for the 21th century. this would be dumb, since the only reason they're writing a new constitution is as a concession to the not-right-wing in order to avoid a second "estallido social", but the boric government could annoy the fash enough that they decide to punish the left with a constitution even more tailor-made to ensure nothing but what they want to do can be doen. I give this 30%

* the designated "experts" copy-paste the bachelet constitution from the 2010s, which was a previous constitutional attempt from the center-leaning (center-right in economics, center-left in social stuff) concertación (you know, the guys which ruled over the 'transition' from pinochet. the bachelet text is an acceptable compromise for the concertación and the people on the alianza (the oldschool rightwingers), at least the ones who "want to close the constitutional matter". 25%

* the whole things falls apart. this is not unlikely. I give it a probability of like 45%

I haven’t been following this… how come they’re still trying to make a new constitution? As good an idea as that sounds, I thought it was pretty much dead after the last attempt.

mostly because the right was so terrified at the 2022 constitutional draft that, as a part of the rechazo campaign they promised, openly and all day every day in the media they controlled (which is all media) that "if you guys vote reject, we'll try again... no seriously trust us, we want to change the constitution too, just not this one". they, this was an olive branch from the old pinochet-era rightos to the pinochet-era center-leftos, the concertación, who a) know that the current constitution gives the right much much more power than it would have under a normal, not tailor-made democracy. and b) didn't like the 22 draft because it was too progressive for them.

in anglo terms, the overton window in Chile as a whole is, well as you know this is a bit of an ancapistan. the overton window ranges from pinochet to hillary clinton, so it's very easy for something to be too progressive for people. especially when they're bombarded all day every day with "convention bad, "dialogue" good". in this context, dialogue means the right dictating terms to everyone else.

@Ares: absolutely. the elected guys, who don't matter anyway beyond having veto powers, will be elected as per the senate rules, giving conservative country people like 20 times as much voting power as the relatively more progressive santiagoans, the writing will all be carried out by people designated by congress, which is currently in control of the right wing (which is mostly UDI and RN, the two old pinochetist parties). I wouldn't be surprised if the 2023 constitution is even more ancapistani than the 1980 one, with such things as a constitutional ban on the state owning productive enterprises or providing services other than police and defense, and enshrining private property as the foremost legal right or something. this process begins with only 50% support, and it's very likely than not even I will vote approve. honestly, the compulsory voting thing kind of turns me off politics entirely.

[zompist]

What is ancapistani?

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Looks to be an Internet Slang word meaning "of or relating to Ancapistan, a hypothetical anarcho-capitalist state", if I were to guess probably because putting Ancap- on the front of -istan produces a rather sarcastic-sounding word that might also make some people feel mildly uncomfortable.

[Torco]

Pretty much, yeah, ancapistan is a theoretical ancap country. Gremialismo, the official deology of the biggest right wing party of Chile, is not far off... except it doesn't leave *everything* to the market: the church, neighbourhood associations and other civil society organizations have an important role in it as well, and leave room for the army and police to be state-run. But roads, hospitals, pensions, welfare, urban planning, transit? all private please.

I don't think the word is intended to be that provocative: it's just coined from the notion that if you put anarcho-capitalism into practice, what you get is something not unlike, well, some countries that end in -stan: a patchwork of warlords, small aristocrats and so on dominating this or that region.

[Torco]

In chilean news:

the media have been broadcasting crime panic 27/4. it was always like this to some degree, but now the news are literally 80% crime, crime, crime, crime, crime. people's fear of crime has, obviously, risen as a result. this was instrumental in the victory of the rechazo option.

recently, a law was passed in congress, and will almost certainly be approved by the senate, that makes policemen even more above the law. mirroring laws in the US, if a policeman kills somebody, it was in self defense unless proven otherwise.

welp, sic semper america latina, i suppose.

[Moose-tache]

Ironically, the global south is in a better position to try that ancap nonesense. In places like the US and UK, the one job the government can't ever stop doing is providing liquidity during times of crisis. It's the one really big nonpartisan lever that government can pull, and must pull. But without the inflation protections that rich powerful countries can enjoy, dumping money over the heads of panicking bankers is a formula for disaster, so the government of Llamatopia or whatever can actually abolish itself, if it's willing to cause immense suffering and death among its citizens.

[Torco]

well, the whole "austerity and laissez faire" deal was originally a thing that rich people in rich countries forced poor countries to do because it makes extraction by capitalists from the 'free world' easier, see opium wars, gunboat diplomacy and the fmi 'structural reforms' programs. the us and europe have never had a small state, or permissive trade policies (just try exporting fruit to the US), nor have their right wings actually moved for any of it: sure, they say it, but when they're in power they always just increase public spending, often in the military, police, and handouts for the rich. it makes sense that our economies are more set up for that.

if it's willing to cause immense suffering and death among its citizens.

or unable to say no because it recently had a coup and the palace is now occupied by some imperial satrap or other.

[Torco]

so the second attempt at a new constitution...

after the triumph of the rechazo option, the politicians agreed to try again: mostly because the rechazo talking heads had said that if they won they'd not simply stick with the pinochet text, but would try again, "this time we'll get it right" kind of thing. the new process, however, was rather undemocratic: the senate <as undemocratic as other senates, my vote is worth 1/7th of what another guy's vote is for electing people to that august chamber> was to designate a number of experts and they would write a text, and then a number of people would be elected, with the same system as the senate, who would then have the capacity not to write a single comma of the text but, rather, reject bit of it and send it back to the experts, who would then proceed to rewrite the rejected bit, and so on. these 'experts' are just political operators, and include Paul Schaefer's lawyer (Schaefer was the leader of an ethnically german enclave / pedophiliac cult in southern chile with ties to the dictatorship).

the not-that-relevant elected councilors were elected last week: the results were as follows:

with 35% of votes, and 46% of seats, the republican party (furthest right, their official line is not to change the constitution)
with 29% of votes, and 32% of seats, the boric coalition
with 21% of votes, and 22% of seats, the colaition of RN, UDI and Evopoli (the classical right, think the tories or the PP. their official line is that they committed to change the constituion and will come through now, but under their own terms)

Now, of course, they can't write anything, but with 80% of the seats they can tell the experts to "gtfo, write this and that" or i'll reject again. absolute landslide for the fash. a lot of minor forces, including the right-wing of the concertacion (our old center-left thing, think democrats or the PSOE) also ran, but got no seats. 16% of votes were invalid (you know, drawing a cock and balls or so).

What does this mean? well, that the right-wing, who are totally comfortable with the current pinochet constitution, have 78% of the seats in the thing that will reject or approve the articles in the thing that the designated experts will have written. Now, of course, it's likely that they'll write an even more right-wing text than what we currently have, or it's possible that they'll write a carbon copy of the pinochet text. It's unlikely that the boric coalition (these days they go by 'unity for chile', but next election they'll be called something else i'm sure) will be able to influence the resulting text. This new text will be plebiscited in december. Now, constitutional plebiscites are very rarely voted in the negative, and it seems unlikely that it'll happen twice in a row, so....

yeah, my next constitution will likely be written in full and without opposition by nazis and fascist collaborationists alone. oh well. at least in a few weeks I'll get an EU passport, so if things get scary I can gtfo. At least there's the hope that they'll write some minimalist, inane thing <which is what the original constitutional convention should have written in the first place, but they got too greedy>. oh well.

[Ares Land]

I'm impressed. There's absolutely nothing right about this process except that they haven't killed anyone yet.

[rotting bones]

yeah, my next constitution will likely be written in full and without opposition by nazis and fascist collaborationists alone. oh well. at least in a few weeks I'll get an EU passport, so if things get scary I can gtfo. At least there's the hope that they'll write some minimalist, inane thing <which is what the original constitutional convention should have written in the first place, but they got too greedy>. oh well.

How did it go?

[Torco]

I have a spanish passport: it's a nice little thing, dark pink and with pictures of vehicles in the pages.

as for the new republican constitution... honestly they're sort of working as quietly as possible, and because I've lost hope in the whole constitutional affaire I'm a lot less informed about the goings on. they recently finished the draft that they'll put to the ultraright-dominated council. i haven't yet read the thing in its entiretly, but i suppose i'll have to, eventually. from what i've gathered, it looks like a normal, liberal-conservative constitution... which tbh is better than what we have anyway. it wasn't long ago that the elected council, which for all intents and purposes is 100% right wing, began doing their thing... we'll see what happens, but i don't have a lot of optimism.

[rotting bones]

Well, good luck.