Chile’s forgotten constitutional referendum could still be decisive

President Gabriel Boric was a key reason behind the existence of a constitutional reform process in Chile, as he negotiated the idea with his right-wing predecessor, Sebastián Piñera, in order to put an end to the massive street protests that upended the country in 2019 and 2020.

Rewriting a constitution that, despite some reforms during the democratic era, was initially designed by the 1973-1990 Augusto Pinochet dictatorship, made sense as a fresh start, reviewing the social contract that protesters were questioning.

The country’s left was in the ascendancy back then, winning close to two-thirds of seats in the Constitutional Assembly that would draft the new text, and electing Mr. Boric himself as the next president in 2021.

But the honeymoon didn’t last long. Chilean voters were not convinced by the assembly’s proposal and rejected its draft by a 62-38 majority last year.

This led to the start of a second reform process, which began with a new election earlier this year to pick the representatives who would draft a new text. But this time, it was the right that dominated the vote, winning a supermajority and turning the tables of the process to open the door to a much more conservative proposal. 

The September 2022 and May 2023 elections were big defeats for Mr. Boric, and they combined with a bad start for his administration, which failed to pass key bills such as its tax reform proposal and was also mired in corruption...