Chileans voted Sunday on whether to adopt a new constitution that would break with the era of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship, promote a more welfare-based society and strengthen indigenous rights.

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

Polling stations opened at 8:00 am (1200 GMT), with long lines of voters gathering in some parts of the country.

The social upheaval that began in 2019 provided the impetus for revising the constitution, but the 388-article draft – including proposals to legalize abortion – has proved controversial and often confusing.

“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.

The proponents of the new text are still hoping for victory.

“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.

Regardless of the result, Boric called for national unity in his vote in Punta Arenas.

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

One of the main concerns of opponents 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 enshrine reproductive rights and protect the environment and natural resources like water, which some say are being exploited by private mining companies, have also attracted 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 “reject” vote by up to 10 percentage points, sociologist Marta Lagos said the outcome was not certain.

In the vast Santiago metropolitan area, a majority of people appear to be voting in favor of the new constitution, Lagos said.

“There’s always a chance that all the polls are wrong,” Lagos told AFP. “(But) I don’t think that probability is more than a five percent chance, and ‘Reject’ has a 95 percent chance of winning.”

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

Around 40 world-renowned economists and political scientists have expressed their support for the new constitution.

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 change in a conservative country fraught with social and ethnic tensions and lay the foundations 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 to do so, 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.

Some critics accuse 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.