sep 6, 2022 - Rejected draft for environmentally conscious consitution by 61.86% majority in Chile

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How can a country that approved writing a new constitution with a 78.27% majority now reject it with a 61.86% majority? Some possible reasons why Chileans rejected the constitution are the progressive aspect of the text, where plurinationality was particularly controversial; the national convention’s lack of capacity to include the right-wing in the negotiation and definition of the rights; lack of legitimacy due to problematic behaviour of some convention member, including lying about having cancer to get elected; the ambiguity of the text and its complexity; and a division among the centre-left on whether to approve or reject the new constitution (Molina P. , 2020).

In addition, several obstacles made it harder for voters to understand and learn about the constitutional content. For example, fake news and disinformation were shared on social media ahead of the vote. So much so that even a member of the U.S Congress called attention to the problem on his social media channels. Another obstacle was the uneven access to resources between the two campaigns, where 89% of all private donations were given to the rejection campaign and only 11% to the approval campaign.

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