Analysis-Chile’s constitution will struggle to escape Pinochet’s shadow

A citizen casts his vote at a polling station during elections for a new assembly to draft constitution, at the Estadio Nacional, in Santiago, Chile April 7, 2023. REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado

SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Chile's new constitution may end up looking a lot like the current text, which dates back to the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship - but without his name on it - after the political right took charge of the redraft process in a harsh nationwide electoral defeat for leftist President Gabriel Boric.

Chile's Republican Party, led by far-right firebrand Jose Antonio Kast, secured over a third of the national vote on Sunday to elect advisers to draw up the new constitution, a sharp shift from a progressive majority that led the failed first attempt.