Abstract

On the 18th of October 2019, Chile began undergoing the biggest political and social upheaval since the one that ended the Pinochet dictatorship. This upheaval slowly gave way to a process of impeachment of the traditional institutions of The State. This paper looks at the political dimension of the ensuing social revolt and its scope in the Constituent itinerary agreed on the 15th of November 2019. It seeks to answer the question of whether the mass movement was the expression of a political counter-hegemony challenging the Neo-Liberal order. To this end, it draws on the main theoretical currents questioning the fit between democracy and Neo-Liberalism, especially Chantal Mouffe's 'antagonistic' notion of 'the populist moment'. In practical terms, it analyses, on the basis of past political and electoral behaviour, two cleavages that tie in with the emergence of the populist moment, that of elite/people and parties/ independents. From the analysis of the electoral data covering the last thirty years and that bearing on the results of the 2021 election of the members of the Constituent Convention, it is concluded that political weariness is mirrored in the two cleavages defining the populist moment. Moreover, there was a strengthening of the various political forces that saw themselves as anti-Neo-Liberal.