PREAMBLE In many of our articles we have referred to the implacable struggle that the Chilean 'political elite' is waging against the national community.
Chileans favored independents to draft a new constitution go.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from go.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
SANTIAGO, Chile
Chileans favored left-leaning independent candidates in electing an assembly that will draft a new constitution, replacing the one imposed in the 1980s during the military dictatorship.
In a major blow to the traditional political forces in Chile, weekend voting for the 155-member constitutional assembly gave 48 seats to independent candidates, most of them identified with leftist ideology, according to official results announced Monday.
The next biggest group was the governing center-right coalition, with 37 seats, and then the Communist Party with 28. Twenty-five seats went to another leftist coalition, and 17 were reserved for Indigenous people.
“It is a disastrous result,” Fuad Chaín, president of the center-left Christian Democratic Party, said Monday of the poor showing by Chile’s political parties. Chaín was elected to be member of the new assembly.