Advertisement
Published: January 19th 2010
Edit Blog Post
Avotar!
Presidential elections in Chile inspire journalistic brilliance! The dull roar outside has been steadily intensifying as people gather on the Alameda. The sound comes in waves as the election results for each region are announced. There is a constant blare of car horns and the periodic euphoria of ‘chi, chi, chi, le, le, le, viva Chile!’ As far as I can tell, the sky has not begun raining fire. Two blocks away at the Crown Plaza Hotel is the campaign headquarters for Sebastian Piñera, who it appears will almost certainly be the next president of Chile. There is little chance that this will garner much notice in the United States, but here, it is a victory of very much historic proportions.
Since the end of the Pinochet dictatorship, governance has been very firmly held by the Concertación, an alliance of the ‘left´ that coalesced to oppose the referendum on retaining Pinochet (who trying to solidify his legacy held a referendum in 1988 on whether or not to continue his rule. Unexpectedly, the ‘No’ vote prevailed by the slightest of margins and democratically the dictatorship came to an end). However, before leaving, Pinochet was smart enough to rewrite the Constitution to not only cover his ass but also
El Mercurio
Pictured are the folks who gathered outside the Crown Plaza Hotel to cheer Piñera and annoy Carly to protect the political right, i.e. his supporters. In a truly Kafkian bit of brilliance, the new Constitution created a binomial election system that was constructed so that barring an overwhelming majority, seats in Congress would be allotted more or less evenly between the left and the right. Then to make sure this rigging could not be corrected, the Constitution says you have to have a 2/3 majority vote in Congress to change the binomial system. I may not have that exactly right as it was explained to me in Spanish, but that is the general idea. It is a perfect Catch-22, a phrase that unfortunately does not exist (as far as I know) in Spanish. Consequently, the right has never truly lost political influence (and so has managed to thwart too much digging into the past) but the presidency, which is done by popular vote, has been out of reach. Until today.
The election of Sebastian Piñera marks the right’s return from the wilderness and may signify that Chileans are ready to relegate the dictatorship to history. Maybe. Piñera is a billionaire businessman with a PhD in economics from Harvard. He, like many in the rich beyond imagination
.01% crowd, made his fortune during the dictatorship. Obviously, this trivial fact doesn’t sit well with many. Piñera has countered by going to extraordinary lengths to advertise his vote against Pinochet in the referendum in 88. Echoing he who cannot be named, he bills himself as a ‘compassionate conservative’, a bit of linguistic nonsense that somehow escapes the scrutiny of common sense and reality.
Part of the Concertación’s problem is that they seemed to search long and hard to find the least inspirational candidate possible to run against Piñera. Who they finally came up with was Eduardo Frei, an ex-president whose legacy as president seems to be that he filled the office for six years. Whereas Piñera is nipped, tucked and trim, Frei looks like a basset hound that’s somehow escaped from the animal shelter. Chileans report that he is about as inspiring as burnt toast. Last month, in the first round of the elections, Piñera, running on the Obama borrowed message of change and hope, trounced Frei, Ominami (the renegade Concertación independent candidate) and Arrate, the communist. Piñera did not have the 50% necessary to be directly elected, but he beat Frei by 14%, an almost insurmountable difference.
The broad support for the independent Ominami reveals Chileans dissatisfaction with the Concertación, who are viewed as too comfortable, too entrenched, and ossified. Though President Bachelet remains wildly popular (around 75% approval rating), Frei wasn’t able to get much of this to rub off. Consequently, today’s outcome wasn’t completely unexpected (Pinera 52% to Frei 48%).
It will be interesting to see where Piñera and the right coalition take the country. His party, the National Renewal Party, is much more centrist than the uber conservative Opus Dei, Pinochista UDI (Independent Democratic Union Party) who make up the majority of the conservatives in Congress. To some degree, Chile's short term fate will be determined by which part of this conservative coalition drives the agenda. Thankfully, Piñera has vowed to continue the social programs of the Concertación. Whatever its failings, the Concertación spent 20 years constructing a social net that helped transform Chilean society: e.g. the Chilean poverty rate in 1990 when Pinochet stepped down: 40%. Today: less than 14%. Part of Codelco, the state owned copper company whose revenue helped Chile escape most of the nasty bits of the Global Recession, will likely be privatized - proving that even though there
Piñera
This is 'art'. My friend Manu told me the multi-colored triangle was ripped off from Lula's campaign in Brazil. Between that and the Obama 'hope / change forget the specifics' message, the Piñera people did some pretty successful borrowing. is undeniable proof that the goose lays golden eggs, conservatives must slavishly follow their economic/political ideology that what is good for the many is certainly better if it instead serves the few. Patagonia (Aysen) is probably fucked. The businessman Piñera isn´t likely to cause the energy companies any problems. The inequality gap will almost certainly widen over the next four years, and Piñera has already identified how he will deal with the consequences: build more prisons. My suspicion is that public health and education will be ignored and the focus will be on job creation and GDP. One important silver lining is that the democratic process in Chile may recoup some of the luster it lost with that unsightly 18 year dictatorship on its record. According to R Funk, a political scientist at U Chile, “The right can at last bury Pinochet and can say it’s part of the democratic game,” (http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-01-17/billionaire-pinera-projected-to-beat-frei-in-chilean-elections.html). .
Amid the general euphoria on the streets, I only overheard one dissenting voice. Disgustedly, a passer bye muttered into his cellphone, “It’s not like the right in Europe, but it is the right just the same. It’s shit!” Get ready for 4 years of it.
On the Alameda going to the party
Apparently, the deliriously happy also included some some old bags with busts of Pinochet.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.205s; Tpl: 0.02s; cc: 18; qc: 74; dbt: 0.0827s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb