In 1988, Chileans voted to end General Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship. But despite popular hopes, the transition to democracy left key parts of his regime intact, including a constitution that enshrined neoliberalism and elite control in the political system. It did so by requiring a supermajority in both houses of congress to make large-scale reforms to the economic or political system and establishing an electoral regime that rewarded virtually all seats to the top two parties or coalitions.

In the decades that followed the transition, power has traded between a center-right and center-left that have both managed the system effectively handed to them by the Pinochet regime without making any fundamental changes. During this time, Chile has seen immense economic growth, but it has been heavily concentrated in the hands of the rich while workers have faced more and more economic insecurity. In the fall of 2019, this helped spark mass protest, first against an increase in metro fare prices, but then into a larger rebellion demanding an end to austerity, neoliberalism, and the fundamentally antidemocratic political system. The unrest forced the government to organize a plebiscite on whether or not to rewrite the Chilean constitution and the method to do so.

With a sharp uptick of voter participation, 80 percent of those voting in the plebiscite chose to overturn the Pinochet constitution and to have an elected Constituent Assembly write the new one. Recent delegate elections to the Constituent Assembly were a devastating blow to traditional political elites and demonstrate new openings for a resurgent left.