Chile: Chilean right-wing parties have won a majority of votes to elect advisers to draft a new constitution, marking a sharp shift from a progressive majority that drafted a failed first constitutional rewrite.

Chile’s Republican Party secured nearly 35 percent of the vote, while a separate coalition of traditional right-wing parties gained over 20 percent. President Gabriel Boric’s left-wing coalition received around 29 percent of the vote, with centrist parties taking the rest.

“Today is the first day of a better future, a new start for Chile. Chile has defeated a failed government,” Mr. Jose Antonio Kast, who lost to Mr. Boric in 2021, said during a speech in Santiago.

A 50-seat Constitutional Council will be formed based on the final results of the recent Chilean election to draft a new constitution. The council will require a three-fifths majority to approve the articles.

This is the latest step in a years-long effort to overhaul the country’s dictatorship-era text after nearly 80 percent of Chileans voted to draft a new constitution in 2020 following violent protests against inequality.

The newly elected constitutional advisers will begin the constitution-drafting process in June, and the voters will have the final say on the proposal in December.

“The government won’t meddle with the process and will respect the entity’s autonomy in its deliberation,” Mr. Boric told reporters after voting, adding that the government would act as a guarantor and support requests from the new council.

Largely independent and left-wing constituents drafted the first rewrite, which focused on social benefits, environmental rights, gender parity, and Indigenous rights.

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