Chileans go to the polls on Sunday to decide whether to adopt a new constitution aimed at transforming their market-based society into a more welfare-based society while embarking on sweeping institutional reforms.

Although Chileans had previously voted in droves for a revision of the current constitution, adopted in 1980 during Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship, opinion polls suggest the new text will be rejected.

The social upheaval that began in 2019, when tens of thousands of people demanded a fairer society, sparked the revision of the constitution, but several clauses of the 388-article draft have proved controversial.

“I will reject it because it was a constitution that started badly,” Maria Angelica Ebnes, a 66-year-old housewife, told AFP in Santiago.

“It was enforced by force.”

In October 2019, protests erupted mainly in the capital, led by students initially upset over a proposed increase in subway fares.

These demonstrations led to greater dissatisfaction with the country’s neoliberal economic system and growing inequality.

Although polls are predicting a rejection of the new constitution, supporters are hoping not least because of what they are seeing on the streets.

On Thursday evening, an estimated 500,000 people attended the official conclusion of the “Approve” campaign in Santiago, while no more than 500 people attended the “Reject” gathering.

“People will vote en masse and the polls will be wrong again,” said Juan Carlos Latorre, an MP in left-wing President Gabriel Boric’s governing coalition, who supports the new text.

More than 15 million Chileans are eligible to vote in the mandatory referendum.

Their biggest concern is the importance given to the country’s indigenous peoples, who make up nearly 13 percent of the country’s 19 million population.

Proposals to legalize abortion and protect the environment and natural resources like water, which some say are being exploited by private mining companies, have also garnered much attention.

The new constitution would also overhaul the Chilean government, replacing the Senate with a less powerful “Chamber of Regions” and requiring women to hold at least half the positions in public institutions.

While recent polls led the “disagree” vote by up to 10 percentage points, sociologist Marta Lagos believes that “agree” could still win.

In the vast Santiago metropolitan area, a majority of people appear to be voting in favor of the new constitution, although some parts of the city — particularly in the northern and southern areas — are broadly opposed to the changes, Lagos said.

“There’s always a chance that all the polls are wrong, and effectively the advantage for ‘approval’ in Santiago could offset the disadvantage in the north and south,” Lagos told AFP.

“I don’t think that probability is more than five percent, and ‘Reject’ has a 95 percent probability of winning.”

But what is certain is that “the gap will not be 10 points, as the three surveys published in the last two weeks say”.

Only a simple majority is required to adopt the new constitution.

Around 40 world-renowned economists and political scientists spoke out in favor of the new constitution last week.

However, some fear that the new text would create instability and uncertainty, which could then hurt the economy.

“What you’re seeing is a certain conservatism in the Chilean electorate that we haven’t seen in years,” Lagos said.

It was certainly muted last December when millennial Boric was elected president.

Supporters of the new constitution say it will bring about big changes in a conservative country marred by social and ethnic tensions and lay the foundation for a more egalitarian society.

They say the current constitution has given private enterprise free rein over key industries, creating a fertile ground for the prosperity of the rich and the struggle of the poor.

Although the 1980 constitution has undergone several reforms since it was passed, it retains the stigma of having been introduced during a dictatorship.

Chileans have already voted once to rewrite the constitution and then again to elect MPs for it, making Sunday’s vote the third time they have gone to the polls on the issue in just two years .

The new text was drafted by a constitutional convention composed of 154 members – mostly without political affiliations – split equally between men and women, with 17 seats reserved for indigenous people.

The resulting proposal recognizes 11 indigenous peoples and offers them greater autonomy, particularly over judicial matters.

It is the most controversial clause, with some critics accusing the authors of attempting to elevate traditionally marginalized Indigenous people to a higher class of citizens.

If approved, the Chilean Congress will begin deciding how to apply the new laws.

If the new text is rejected, the previous constitution will remain in place.