Constitutional Convention Elects Indigenous President, Leftist VP

Chile's Constitutional Convention convened for the first time and was sworn in on Sunday 4 July amidst some rioting in the Plaza Italia near the National Congress building in the capital, Santiago.

• The 155-member convention elected a president and a vice-president on Sunday. Indigenous Mapuche-rights activist and independent convention member Elisa Loncon was elected president in the second round with 98 votes to 33 votes for the second-placed conservative challenger. In the contest for the convention's vice-presidency, leftist law professor Jaime Bassa was elected in the third round of voting with 84 votes to 35 for his nearest challenger.
• The election to the convention, held in May, delivered a shock result. The conservative Vamos por Chile group failed to win the required one-third of seats needed to veto proposals to the new constitution. This means the two-thirds-plus majority of seats held by centre-left, leftist, or indigenous (usually on the left of the political spectrum) representatives will have the ability to reshape Chile's Pinochet-era constitution with little impact from the political right - which currently governs Chile through President Sebastian Pinera's administration.