Chile delays constitutional assembly election over pandemic

Chile's president has announced that a two-day election to select the drafters of a new constitution is being delayed until May because of the coronavirus pandemic

Virus Outbreak Chile (Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

A two-day election to select the drafters of a new constitution for Chile is being delayed until May because of the coronavirus pandemic, President Sebastián Piñera announced Sunday.

He said the voting to elect 155 Chileans to the constitutional assembly will be held May 15-16 instead of April 10-11 as originally planned. Elections for mayors, city councils and governors also were delayed until the same days of the assembly vote.

“This has been a very difficult decision, but we must make it,” Piñera said, citing the need to “protect everyone’s health and life” amid a new surge in coronavirus infections.

Health experts had recommended suspending the planned election.

Intensive care units are at 95% capacity, with seven of every 10 ICU beds occupied by a COVID-19 case. The Ministry of Health reported Sunday more than 7,300 new coronavirus cases, the fourth consecutive day exceeding 7,000 cases.

Nearly 80% of voters in an Oct. 25 plebiscite supported seating an assembly to rewrite the constitution inherited from the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet when Chile returned to democracy. At the same time, the voters excluded any congress member from serving in the assembly.

The body will reserve 17 seats for Indigenous delegates, and the United Nations says it will be first time a constitution is drafted by an assembly equally divided between men and women.