Constitutional Council elections were held in Chile on 7 May 2023 to choose the 50 general members, plus one seat reserved for Indigenous peoples, of the Constitutional Council. The council was charged with drafting a new constitution after voters rejected the first proposed text in a September 2022 referendum. The vote was held under compulsory voting.

The Republican Party, led by José Antonio Kast and widely described as far-right, won the most votes, with 35.4 percent and 23 seats. The left-wing Unity for Chile coalition, which includes the parties of President Gabriel Boric, won 16 seats. The traditional right-wing coalition Safe Chile won 11, and one seat went to the Indigenous list. The centrist Everything for Chile and the populist Party of the People won none. Republicans and Safe Chile together held 34 of the 50 general seats, more than the three-fifths needed to approve text without the left's support. The result marked a sharp shift from the left-leaning convention elected in 2021 and was widely seen as a setback for Boric.

The Council was installed on 7 June 2023 and approved a draft on 30 October by 33 votes to 17. In a referendum on 17 December 2023, voters rejected the draft by 55.76 percent to 44.24 percent, leaving the 1980 Constitution in force.

Background

2022 plebiscite On 4 September 2022, a national plebiscite known as the "exit plebiscite" was held on the new Political Constitution of the Republic drafted by the Constitutional Convention. The proposed text had faced "intense criticism that it was too long, too left-wing and too radical" and was rejected by 62 percent to 38 percent. Although it was described as one of the world's most progressive constitutions, many voters found it too polarizing, and controversies marred the process. The 1980 Constitution therefore remained in effect.

Agreement for Chile After roughly three months of negotiations, lawmakers announced the "Agreement for Chile" on 12 December 2022 as a second attempt to draft a new constitution under different rules. Under the agreement, 50 directly elected constitutional councillors would draft the text from a preliminary draft prepared by a commission of 24 experts appointed by Congress. A 14-member body appointed by Congress would check that the proposed text complied with 12 institutional and fundamental principles set out in the agreement.

The Republican Party and the Party of the People did not take part in the agreement but agreed to participate in the elections. The constitutional amendment enabling the process passed the Senate without amendments on 4 January 2023 and was dispatched into law by the Chamber of Deputies on 11 January.

The new system involved two bodies: a Congress-appointed Expert Commission and a popularly elected Constitutional Council. The Expert Commission was installed on 6 March 2023 and elected Verónica Undurraga, nominated by the Party for Democracy, as president and Sebastián Soto, nominated by Evópoli, as vice president. The commission had three months, from 6 March to 6 June, to prepare the first draft. The Council was to begin its work after its election and deliver a text by 6 November, followed by a mandatory referendum on 17 December 2023.

Council members would be directly elected in May, with equal representation of men and women and the participation of Indigenous peoples. Articles required approval by three-fifths of the Council, a lower threshold than the two-thirds majority used by the previous convention. Unlike the convention, the number of Indigenous seats was not fixed in advance but depended on the number of votes Indigenous candidates received.

Election date During the December 2022 negotiations, the first date proposed for the election was 16 April 2023. When the constitutional amendment reached Congress, the date was moved to 14 May, which coincided with Mother's Day in Chile. During Senate debate on 27 and 28 December 2022, lawmakers moved the election to 7 May, which was approved.

Electoral system The 50 general seats were elected in the same manner as the Senate of Chile, by multi-member proportional representation using the D'Hondt method and open lists, with no electoral threshold. The constituencies corresponded to Chile's regions and elected between two and five councillors each. (The 2021 convention had instead followed the model of the Chamber of Deputies.) Voting was compulsory, and 15,150,572 people were registered to vote.

Gender parity Lists had to contain an even number of candidates, be headed by a woman, and alternate between women and men. The final Council had to contain 25 men and 25 women. If the preliminary allocation produced an imbalance, a correction mechanism applied. The most-voted candidate of the underrepresented sex from the least-voted list nationally, within the same constituency and preferably the same party, replaced the least-voted candidate of the overrepresented sex. If parity was still not reached, the procedure repeated with the next least-voted list, and so on.

Indigenous representation Indigenous seats were additional (supernumerary) to the 50 general seats. Candidates ran individually on a single national list, in alphabetical order on a separate ballot. Voters were people on the special Indigenous roll prepared by Servel, or people who could demonstrate that they belonged to an Indigenous people.

Candidacies for the Mapuche, Aymara, and Diaguita peoples could be backed by three registered communities or five associations with the National Corporation for Indigenous Development (Conadi); a traditional chieftaincy recognized under Law 19,253; three unregistered representative organizations; or the sponsorship of 120 citizens of the same people. For other Indigenous peoples, one community or association, one unregistered organization, or 60 sponsors sufficed.

The number of seats depended on turnout on the Indigenous ballot: If valid Indigenous votes equaled at least 1.5 percent of valid votes in the rest of the country, one seat was filled by the most-voted candidate. At 3.5 percent or more, two seats were filled, the second going to the most-voted candidate of the other sex. Each additional 2 percentage points added another seat, alternating the sex of the next-highest candidate.

Campaign Timeline Servel's electoral calendar included the following milestones: 26 January: last day to request a change of electoral address; the roll closed the next day. 6 February: deadline to declare candidacies; the campaign period began. 8 March: propaganda permitted in print media and radio and by activists. 7 April: propaganda permitted in authorized public spaces and on private property. 2 May: Servel published ballot facsimiles in newspapers.

The campaign closed on 4 May.

Parties and coalitions Party alliances were settled in the weeks before the 6 February deadline. The Christian Democratic Party (PDC) agreed on 21 January to ally with the parties of the Democratic Socialism bloc, and the Radical Party (PR) initially decided to run on two lists of the governing alliance. The Party for Democracy (PPD) chose on 28 January to run with Democratic Socialism, rejecting a single list of all governing parties. The Liberal Party first sided with the Socialists and Radicals but reversed course on 2 February to join the Socialist Party and Apruebo Dignidad. On 6 February the pacts were registered as Unity for Chile, joining the Apruebo Dignidad parties with the Socialist and Liberal parties, and Everything for Chile, joining the PPD, PR, and PDC.

On the right, National Renewal (RN) ratified an electoral pact with the Independent Democratic Union (UDI) and Evópoli on 28 January, rejecting an alliance with the Republican Party. The three parties registered as Safe Chile, while the Republican Party and the Party of the People each ran separate lists. The nascent parties Democrats and Amarillos por Chile announced they would not join any list or field candidates.

A draw held on 27 February 2023 set the order of the lists on the ballot: A, Party of the People; B, Everything for Chile; C, Republican Party; D, Unity for Chile; E, Safe Chile.

CoalitionPartiesIdeologyPolitical positionPrevious electionCandidates % VotesSeatsNumberRegionsUnity for ChileUnidad para Chile Democratic socialismLeft-wing24.83%Results for Apruebo Dignidad (18.74%, 28 seats), PS (4.84%, 15 seats) and PPD (2.58%, 3 seats) in the 2021 election. Safe ChileChile Seguro ConservatismLiberal conservatismCentre-right toright-wing19.53%Everything for ChileTodo por Chile Social liberalismProgressivismCentre tocentre-left7.41%Republican PartyPartido Republicano National conservatismRight-wing populismRight-wing to far-right1.04% Party of the PeoplePacto con la Gente PopulismE-democracyCentre toright-wingNewLists of independent candidates11.21%Independent candidates outside lists

Candidates A total of 351 candidates ran for the 50 general seats, of whom 72 each were fielded by Unity for Chile, Safe Chile, and the Republican Party, 70 by Everything for Chile, 62 by the Party of the People, and 3 as independents outside lists. The lists were registered on 6 February, and Servel subsequently issued a resolution accepting and rejecting candidacies. Several veteran politicians of the former Concertación ran on the Everything for Chile and Unity for Chile lists.

Three Indigenous candidacies were filed on 8 February: Alihuen Antileo and Julio Marileo for the Mapuche people, and Rudecindo Espíndola for the Atacameño people. On 16 February Servel accepted the two Mapuche candidacies and rejected Espíndola's.

Television airtime On 19 January 2023, the National Television Council (CNTV) said that the constitutional reform did not provide for a free television "electoral strip" for this election. It reasoned that the reform applied the rules for Senate elections, and that Article 32 of Law 18,700 required free airtime only for presidential, combined deputy-and-senator, deputy-only, or national plebiscite contests. Legislators objected that the reform had always envisioned television propaganda, and CNTV board members criticized the council's president, Faride Zerán, for issuing the statement without consulting them. At an extraordinary session on 25 January, the CNTV reversed course and confirmed that a television strip would be broadcast.

The strip ran from 7 April to 4 May, with 30 minutes of airtime daily split into two 15-minute blocks, at 12:45 and 20:45. The CNTV's distribution, published in the Diario Oficial de la República de Chile on 18 March 2023, was as follows:

List Daily airtime(min:sec:frames) Unity for Chile 10:13:27 Safe Chile 8:43:00 Republican Party 3:39:25 Everything for Chile 3:24:02 Party of the People 2:55:26 Independent candidacies 0:31:20 Indigenous candidacies 0:31:20 Total 30:00:00 Note: one second equals 30 frames.

Opinion polls Polls conducted before candidacies were registered, from November 2022 to January 2023, mostly measured support for parties rather than lists. Many polls found a large share of undecided respondents, and several surveyed only one region.

Polling firmFieldwork dateSample sizePCChFASDDCDemAxChPDGChVPLRInd.UndecidedActiva23–27 Jan 202387014.17.4––9.48.38.2–52.620.3––11.810.47.5–50.022.8––12.615.0–49.6Cadem14–16 Dec 202270787434481210535Cadem16–18 Nov 20227025835–4141310830Cadem2–4 Nov 20227087763–815149922

Polls conducted after the lists were formed, from February to April 2023, measured support by coalition. The first table shows national polls and the second shows regional polls. Chile's largest region by population, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, was polled most often. Most polls showed Safe Chile ahead or close in the regions polled, but showed Unity for Chile ahead in national polls and in Valparaíso. Republicans outperformed these polls, winning the largest share of votes nationally.