After a wave of mass protests, and amid a pandemic, the people of Chile go to the polls Sunday for a historic referendum over whether the country should scrap its dictatorship-era constitution and write a new one.
Opinion surveys suggest the electorate will vote “yes,” bringing an end to the 40-year-old charter that was imposed during the rule of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, and has long been seen by many Chileans as the underlying source of many of their grievances.
The vote comes a year after Chile’s capital, Santiago, erupted in anti-government protests that were triggered by a small rise in public transportation fares, but which developed into a prolonged uprising over social and political inequality and spread to other cities.
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