The proposed Political Constitution of the Republic of Chile of 2022 was a draft constitution written by the Constitutional Convention of Chile between 4 July 2021 and 4 July 2022, intended to replace the 1980 Constitution enacted under the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. An early draft was released on 14 May 2022, and the final text was formally delivered to President Gabriel Boric on 4 July 2022.
The Constitutional Convention that drafted the proposal was the first constituent body in the world elected with full gender parity, and it reserved seats for representatives of Chile's indigenous peoples. The resulting text proposed a shift from the subsidiary state model of the 1980 Constitution toward a welfare state, declared Chile a plurinational and ecological state, expanded human rights guarantees, granted greater autonomy to the regions, and replaced the Senate with a weaker Chamber of Regions.
The proposal was submitted to a mandatory national referendum on 4 September 2022, in which it was rejected by roughly 62 percent of voters to 38 percent, with more than 13 million Chileans casting ballots — the highest turnout in the country's electoral history at the time. Analysts attributed the outcome to a combination of factors, including low approval of the Boric government, economic uncertainty, the length and perceived radicalism of the text, and unease over provisions such as plurinationality and the abolition of the Senate. Following the rejection, Chile's Congress launched a second, more moderate constitution-drafting process, whose resulting text was likewise rejected by voters in December 2023, after which the 1980 Constitution, as amended, remained in force.
Background Since the 1980 Constitution was enacted by the military government, critics had questioned its democratic legitimacy, the deficiencies of a text drafted without broad citizen participation, and the high quorums it imposed on subsequent reform. Calls to replace the constitution recurred throughout the post-dictatorship period: the Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia initially pursued reform rather than replacement, both candidates in the 1999 Concertación presidential primaries raised the idea of a plebiscite on constitutional matters, and during the 2009 election Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle and Jorge Arrate both proposed a "new Constitution" to expand social rights. Major reforms were carried out during Ricardo Lagos's presidency in 2005, and the "Marca AC" campaign renewed public attention to the issue during the 2013 election. Michelle Bachelet's second term (2014–2018) launched a citizen-led constituent process that produced a draft new constitution, which was sent to Congress near the end of her term; her successor, Sebastián Piñera, announced he would not continue the project and would instead seek to "modify and perfect" the existing charter.
2019 social unrest and the agreement for a new constitution The immediate origin of the proposal lay in the 2019–2020 Chilean social unrest. A new constitution drafted by an elected constituent assembly became a recurring demand at protests and citizen town-hall meetings (cabildos) held nationwide in late 2019. Social leaders, analysts, and politicians argued that a new charter was needed to channel the protesters' demands, and, under pressure from the public and members of his own coalition, President Piñera eventually acknowledged the possibility of a substantial constitutional overhaul.
On 13–14 November 2019, ruling-party and opposition lawmakers negotiated over how a new constituent process should be organized and how citizens would participate in it, weighing a fully elected "Constitutional Convention" against a "Mixed Constitutional Convention" made up equally of sitting legislators and directly elected members; the central disputes concerned the quorum needed to approve articles and what would happen if a provision failed to pass. The negotiations concluded on 15 November 2019 with the signing of the "Agreement for Social Peace and the New Constitution" by party leaders from across the political spectrum at the former National Congress building in Santiago. Congress advanced the enabling reform in the following weeks — presented for urgent debate on 6 December and approved by the Senate, after the Chamber of Deputies, on 19 December 2019.
2020 entry plebiscite
A national plebiscite held on 25 October 2020 (postponed from an original date in April 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic) asked voters whether Chile should draft a new constitution and, if so, which body should write it. The "Approve" option won with 78.27 percent of the vote, and voters chose the fully elected Constitutional Convention over the mixed alternative. Marking the occasion, Piñera described the vote as the beginning of a shared path toward a new constitution meant to unify, rather than divide, the country.
Constitutional Convention
The Constitutional Convention was the body specially elected to draft the proposal, under Chapter XV of the 1980 Constitution; its sole mandate was to produce a draft text, without assuming the powers of other state institutions. Its 155 members were elected on 15–16 May 2021, under a call to election formalized by decree on 24 November 2020.
The Convention comprised 78 men and 77 women, making it the first constituent assembly in the world elected with full gender parity. Seventeen seats were reserved for representatives of Indigenous peoples: seven for the Mapuche, two for the Aymara, and one each for the Kawésqar, Rapanui, Yagán, Quechua, Atacameño, Diaguita, Colla, and Chango peoples. Among its members were 59 lawyers, 7 law students, 20 academics, 9 engineers, and 5 journalists; six were former members of the National Congress and nine were former government officials. Eight members openly identified as LGBT: five gay men, one lesbian, one pansexual person, and one bisexual person.
The Convention's inaugural session was held on 4 July 2021 at the former National Congress building, a date chosen to coincide with the 210th anniversary of the installation of Chile's first National Congress; special health measures were imposed for the ceremony because of the pandemic. Delegates elected Mapuche linguist and academic Elisa Loncón as the Convention's first president, a choice widely reported as a symbolic gesture toward Chile's Indigenous peoples and toward gender parity; Jaime Bassa was elected vice-president.
The plenary approved the Convention's general regulations on 14 September 2021, deciding that individual articles of those regulations would be adopted by simple majority. Substantive debate on the new constitution's content began on 18 October 2021, two years after the start of the social unrest. The draft presented in May 2022 was organized into eight chapters produced by eight thematic commissions, covering the foundations of democracy, Chile's character as a plurinational state and the self-determination of its peoples, constitutional principles, fundamental rights, the environment, justice systems, knowledge systems, and the rights of Indigenous peoples. The first draft ran to 499 articles; after revision by a Harmonization Commission, the final text delivered on 4 July 2022 contained 388 articles plus 57 transitory provisions.
2022 exit plebiscite
The proposal was submitted to a mandatory "exit plebiscite" on 4 September 2022. More than 13 million people voted — about 86 percent of the electoral roll, the highest turnout of any election in Chilean history to that point — and the "Reject" option won with roughly 61.9 percent of valid votes against about 38.1 percent for "Approve." Rejection prevailed in all 16 of Chile's regions and in the great majority of its communes, including in President Boric's home region of Magallanes and in metropolitan Santiago. Votes cast by Chileans abroad went the opposite way, favoring "Approve" by roughly 61 to 39 percent.
Commentators pointed to several intertwined causes for the rejection: low approval ratings for the Boric government, an economic slowdown, and uncertainty over how the proposed changes would be implemented. The concept of plurinationality, which some voters read as dividing the country into separate national groups rather than affirming a single Chilean nation, drew particular criticism, as did the proposed elimination of the Senate — an institution dating to the country's founding — and an "unlimited parity" provision that critics argued could tip gender balance in state bodies toward female predominance. Some sectors of the opposition argued the draft pulled the country too far to the left, was too long and ambitious to be workable, and embedded values associated with younger generations that did not reflect the priorities of more traditional voters. Polling throughout 2022 had consistently shown the proposal trailing, with approval never exceeding about 38 percent in surveys conducted after March of that year.
Content The proposed text opened with a preamble approved by the Constitutional Convention, describing the document as freely granted by the people of Chile — made up of various nations — through a participatory, parity-based, and democratic process. The remaining content was distributed across eleven chapters, followed by a set of transitory provisions.
General principles and provisions
Chapter I (Articles 1–16) set out the foundational principles of the Chilean state: its role, its relationship with individuals, and the distribution of power across its territory. It established the state's social and welfare orientation, its plurinational and ecological character, the basis of sovereignty, and a commitment to human rights as underlying all state action. It affirmed the unity of the national territory while preserving internal autonomy for its constituent territories, guaranteed liberty and equality before the law, recognized equitable participation of women, men, and sexual and gender minorities in positions of power, established the secular character of the state, recognized all forms of family, set out the country's official language and national emblems, and defined the hierarchy of international treaties. The chapter also declared the Constitution's binding legal force over every person, institution, and state body.
Bill of rights