By Al Jazeera ,
24 June 2021
Flag of Chile (photo credit: pixabay)
Chilean President Sebastian Pinera has said the assembly to draft a new constitution will hold its first session on July 4, as the South American country moves towards replacing its current conservative, dictatorship-era charter.
[...] Over the course of nine months, the 155-member drafting body will have to balance a popular clamour for profound social change with the need to maintain a robust economy as it rewrites the old constitution, which dates from the rule of Augusto Pinochet.
Their term could be extended for three more months, and the body will need a two-thirds majority to approve the draft that will be put to a national referendum next year, in which voting will be mandatory. [...]
In choosing the body to write the new charter, voters in May turned their backs on traditional political parties and flocked to independent candidates with no party affiliation but mostly left-wing or socialist ideas.
Many of the independent candidates – an assortment of teachers, writers, journalists, lawyers and activists – were involved in or inspired by the 2019 uprisings and campaigned with promises of social change.
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Al Jazeera
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