The 2021 Chilean Constitutional Convention election was held on 15 and 16 May 2021 to choose the 155 members of the Constitutional Convention, the body charged with drafting a new constitution to replace the charter inherited from the Pinochet dictatorship. It was called after 78% of voters in the October 2020 national plebiscite approved writing a new constitution through an elected convention. The vote was the culmination of a process that began with the 2019 protests, and it was postponed several times because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was held on the same dates as the 2021 municipal and regional governor elections.
Of the 155 seats, 138 were filled by open list proportional representation in 28 districts, and 17 were reserved for ten recognized indigenous peoples. Special rules guaranteed gender parity, which made the Convention the first constitution-drafting body in the world with equal numbers of men and women. Rules adopted in 2020 also lowered the signature thresholds for independent candidates, who ran in large numbers.
The result was widely seen as a surprise and a rebuke of the established parties. The governing right-wing list Vamos por Chile finished first with 37 seats, well short of the one-third needed to veto provisions. Apruebo Dignidad, an alliance of the Broad Front and the Communist Party of Chile, won 28. The List of the People, an anti-establishment list of independents, won 26. The successor to the Concertación, the Lista del Apruebo, won 25. Sixty-five of the 155 members were independents or came from new lists, counting the 17 indigenous representatives. The Convention was installed on 4 July 2021. The constitutional text it produced was rejected in a plebiscite on 4 September 2022.
Background Following the massive protests and riots that began in October 2019, several political parties signed the "Agreement for Peace and the New Constitution" on 15 November 2019, setting in motion a process to write a new constitution. A technical committee of 14 experts appointed by the signatory parties drafted the necessary constitutional reforms between late November and 6 December 2019. Its members included Sebastián Soto, Ernesto Silva Méndez and Arturo Fermandois for the right, and Pamela Figueroa and Claudia Heiss for the center-left and left. The reform, published in the Diario Oficial de la República de Chile on 24 December 2019, provided that if voters approved a new constitution in an entry plebiscite, they would also choose between a fully elected "Constitutional Convention" and a "Mixed Constitutional Convention" of sitting legislators and citizens. The elected Convention won the second question, and its members were to be elected under the same rules and districts as the Chamber of Deputies.
Scheduling and postponements The entry plebiscite was originally scheduled for 26 April 2020, with the election of convention members to follow on 25 October 2020. The pandemic forced repeated changes. The plebiscite was moved to 25 October 2020 and the Convention election was rescheduled for 4 April 2021. Because that date fell during Holy Week, the election was pushed back a week to 11 April. In March 2021 a law extended voting to two days, 10 and 11 April, making it the first Chilean election to be held over more than one day. A rise in COVID-19 cases led to a constitutional reform, promulgated on 6 April 2021, that moved the vote a month later to 15 and 16 May. The election had been formally called by decree on 24 November 2020.
Electoral system
The Convention had 155 members, all directly elected: 138 by the electorate at large and 17 reserved for citizens identified as indigenous. For the 138 at-large seats, the 28 constituencies were the same as those used for the Chamber of Deputies, each electing between three and eight members by open-list proportional representation. Seats were allocated using the D'Hondt method, as in parliamentary elections. Spending limits for each district were set by the Electoral Service (Servel) in proportion to the number of voters. Candidates had to be at least 18 years old and have no prior felony conviction.
To make room for the reserved seats without enlarging the body, Servel reduced by one the seats of districts that elected more than three members and had the highest shares of indigenous population aged 18 and over, according to the 2017 census. No district was reduced by more than one seat. The resulting allocation was:
+ Constituencies and seatsDistrictGeographical areaInitial seatsIndigenous populationaged 18+Final seats1stArica and Parinacota2ndTarapacá3rdAntofagasta4thAtacama5thCoquimbo6thAconcagua, Quillota and Petorca7thValparaíso, San Antonio and Pacific Islands8thSantiago West9thSantiago North10thSantiago Central11thSantiago North East12thSantiago South East13thSantiago South14thSantiago Outer15thCachapoal Valley16thColchagua Valley17thMaule North18thMaule South19thÑuble20thGreater Concepción21stBiobío and Arauco22ndAraucanía North23rdAraucanía South24thLos Ríos25thOsorno and Llanquihue Lake26thPuerto Montt, Chiloé and Palena27thAysén28thMagallanes and Chilean AntarcticaTotal at-large seats
Independent candidates Independent candidates could run as individuals or as electoral pacts of independents. Under Law 21,216, promulgated in March 2020, individual independents needed signatures equal to 0.4% of those who voted in their district at the last parliamentary election, and independent lists needed 1.6%. After criticism of these thresholds, Congress passed a reform in December 2020 reducing them to 0.2% for individuals and 0.5% for lists, with a floor of 300 and 500 signatures respectively. On 15 December 2020 Servel opened an online system for citizens to sponsor independent candidacies.
Gender parity Several mechanisms for gender parity were debated in December 2019, including open lists with alternating seat assignment, closed lists, and separate ballots for male and female candidates. The mechanism finally adopted by Law 21,216 had these features: Every list had to alternate candidates by gender, starting with a woman. Lists with an even number of candidates had to be split equally, and in odd-numbered lists neither gender could exceed the other by more than one. In districts electing three or four members, lists could present up to six candidates, rather than the usual number of seats plus one. If a district's results did not meet parity, the least-voted elected candidate of the over-represented gender was replaced by a candidate of the other gender from the same list or party.For the election of members for the Constitutional Convention, the criteria for gender parity are not met if: in districts with an even number of seats, the number of elected members of one gender is larger than the other. in districts with an odd number of seats, the difference in the number of elected members by gender is more than one.
The mechanism was described by scholars as a way of achieving an equal number of men and women in the body.
Reserved seats for indigenous peoples
The reserved seats were negotiated in a congressional mixed commission in December 2020. On 7 December it first approved 18 reserved seats, nine inside the 155 and nine additional, with eight for the Mapuche. On 10 December the deal was revised: the Mapuche allocation was cut to seven, an eighteenth seat was proposed for the tribal Afro-descendant people, and all seats would fall within the 155 members, with no district left below three seats. Both chambers approved the 17 indigenous seats on 15 December, but the Afro-Chilean seat failed to reach the required quorum.
The seats were allocated roughly in proportion to the number of people identifying with each group in the 2017 census: seven for the Mapuche,Mapuche seats were allocated across three macro-regions according to the candidates' place of residence. two for the Aymara, and one each for the Diaguita, Quechua, Atacameño (Lickanantay), Colla, Chango, Rapa Nui, Kawésqar and Yaghan peoples.
+ Reserved seats and candidate residency requirementsThe election was held nationwide, but candidates were restricted to certain regions according to residence and the people they represented.Indigenous peopleSeatsRegions of residence for candidatesMapucheCoquimbo, Valparaíso, Santiago Metropolitan, O'Higgins and Maule (1 seat); Ñuble, Biobío and Araucanía (4 seats); Los Ríos, Los Lagos and Aysén (2 seats)AymaraArica and Parinacota, Tarapacá and AntofagastaDiaguitaAtacama and CoquimboQuechuaArica and Parinacota, Tarapacá and AntofagastaAtacameñoAntofagastaCollaAtacama and CoquimboChangoAntofagasta, Atacama, Coquimbo and ValparaísoRapa NuiEaster IslandKawésqarMagallanes and Chilean AntarcticaYaghanMagallanes and Chilean Antarctica
Candidates had to be registered as members of a recognized indigenous people with CONADI or hold an affidavit declaring so. Mapuche candidacies needed the backing of three indigenous communities, five indigenous associations or a traditional chiefdom, or 120 signatures of people with accredited indigenous status. Candidates for the other peoples needed the backing of one community or association, or 60 signatures. Servel prepared a special electoral roll of indigenous voters from official registries, and voters on that roll could choose either the beige at-large ballot or the green reserved-seat ballot for their people. The most-voted candidates were elected within each group, with the same gender-parity correction applied through alternate candidates.
Each list also had to include candidates with disabilities in at least 5% of its candidacies.
Rejected proposals Other proposals to broaden representation were rejected. In December 2019 the Chamber of Deputies voted down an amendment by deputy Miguel Mellado to reserve 5% of candidacies for gender and sexual minorities. A constitutional reform to create three electoral districts abroad, with eight seats in total, so that Chileans living overseas could vote and run, was approved by the Chamber's Constitution Committee on 1 December 2020. It was rejected on the floor on 3 December for lack of the required quorum, having received 93 votes in favor.
Campaign Parties and lists Servel approved 71 lists of candidates. Three ran in all 16 regions, including the three largest coalitions with parliamentary representation. Two coalition lists and three parties presented candidates in some regions only. Another 63 lists of independent candidates were presented at the district level. Some of these came together nationally, chiefly The List of the People, Non-Neutral Independents and Constituent Social Movements. A further 28 independents ran outside any list, each acting as a one-person list in their district. In all, roughly 1,280 candidacies were presented for the at-large seats and 95 for the reserved seats.
Because independents could now form lists, many new groupings appeared. A group led by physician James Hamilton, journalist María Olivia Mönckeberg and musician Claudio Narea founded the "Partido por la Dignidad" in January 2020 as a vehicle for independents. Hamilton and Narea left within days and announced a rival party, "Con Todos". Neither completed registration with Servel, and both were dissolved in autumn 2020. The northern "Movimiento Independientes del Norte" also failed to qualify as a party and was dissolved on 27 October 2020, but ran as an independent list in District 3.