Chile’s President Sebastian Pinera has enacted a law to postpone by five weeks an election to choose a commission to rewrite the country’s dictatorship-era constitution.
The vote was to have taken place on Sunday, but Pinera proposed that it be delayed, and received the backing of parliament.
Signing the bill in Santiago Pinera said the reasons for the postponement was to tend to the health of citizens and secondly, taking care of the health of the country’s democracy.
Last October, Chileans voted overwhelmingly in favor of rewriting the constitution which was also one of the major demands when social unrest that lasted for months broke out in October 2019.
The election to decide the members of a Constituent Assembly who will rewrite the constitution — which has been in effect from 1973-to 1990, will now take place on May 15 or 16.
Campaigning would be suspended until April 28.
Reportedly, Chile’s intensive care units are running at 95 percent occupancy and has recorded new daily infections recently, regularly topping 8,000, despite a fast advancing vaccination campaign.
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