Chile's convention presented final draft

(July 5, 2022)

Chile’s constitutional convention formally finished its work yesterday. Delegates presented President Gabriel Boric with a formal draft of a new magna carta, that will be put to citizen referendum in September.

The text has 388 articles, and 57 transitional norms, which would make it one of the longest constitutions in the world, if approved. It proposes a “representative and reinforced democracy” with elements of direct democracy that are new to Chile. Pointedly, it proposes social rights, environmental conservation and decentralization that diverge strongly from Chile’s current market-oriented magna carta.

The proposed constitution also focuses on equality for women and minorities, particularly Chile’s long-marginalized Indigenous communities.

The undertaking is a response to massive social protests that broke out in 2019, in response to structural inequality in Chile. If the new constitution is approved, it will replace the current charter, implemented by General Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship government in 1981.

The drafting process is considered by many to be among the most inclusive and democratic instances ever in Chile, carried out by a gender-equal convention made-up mostly of politically independent delegates.

But the process has also been messy and confusing for many citizens. While the drafting process received widespread initial support, polls in recent months indicate that many Chileans have soured on the proposed constitution, and approval is not assured.

(El País, Associated Press, Deutsche Welle, Al Jazeera)

Mexico

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Regional Relations

• Some U.S. officials say the U.S. ambassador in Mexico, Ken Salazar, is overly aligned with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, even at the cost of contradicting his own government’s policies, reports the New York Times.

Brazil

• Foreign policy is a key issue in Brazil’s upcoming presidential election — Brazilian voters have a deep desire for their country to be respected as an important actor on the world stage, write Julia Dias Leite and Feliciano de Sá Guimarães in Americas Quarterly.

Honduras

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Regional

• A new UNODC report on worldwide drug production, trafficking and consumption during the Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the resilience of Latin America’s cocaine trade and the region’s expanding role in producing other types of drugs, reports InSight Crime.

• Amid an enormous wave of migration across Latin America, aid agencies are sounding the alarm about the barriers that persist for migrant children to access education, reports Al Jazeera.

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Cuba

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Ecuador

• Nearly three weeks of anti-government protests in Ecuador last month cost the country at least $1 billion, according to the central bank. More than three-quarters of the costs were incurred by the private sector and the rest by the public sector, specifically oil. (AFP)

Critter Corner

• Southern right whales winter in shallow waters near Brazil, South Africa and Australia, where mothers raise their babies quietly to avoid predators, reports the Washington Post.