Confessions and definitions of Daniel Jadue after 12 years as mayor of Recoleta

In interview with ElSiglo.cl, the communal chief established that personally “there is the satisfaction of having changed the lives of thousands of people” and pointed out: “There is the satisfaction of the people when they celebrate and thank the pharmacy, the optician, the bookstore, the popular real estate agency, the popular rehabilitation center. “People appreciate access to culture.” Points of frustration in these years?: “The persecution. The absence of a deeper democracy and the role of the media.” Asked about the axes of positive municipal management, the leader of the Communist Party also aimed to “make the lives of the inhabitants of the communes cheaper, simpler and easier.” On May 29 is the formalization process requested by the Prosecutor’s Office against the mayor; Given this, Jadue indicated that “I am calm because I am fully convinced of my innocence and that all the crimes that are accused of me are going to fall because not even the material budgets for their occurrence are met.” And his political future: “What happens in the future is a decision that we will make collectively, assuming the costs and benefits. Now, I also leave open the possibility of resting and dedicating more time to my family.” He also spoke of challenges, responses and criticisms in the field of the left and did not fail to affirm that “the left has proposals, but it must be braver to install and dispute them, returning to work at the base.”

Hugo Guzmán R. Journalist. “The century”. Santiago. 5/23/2024. After 12 years as mayor of Recoleta, personally, what is left?

Well, a tremendous satisfaction that has several facets. The first is to have developed a project that destroys the myth that Chileans do not vote for communists. I always like to remember that the Communist Party of Recoleta had a little more than 2% of the votes 22 years ago. And that, through a long period of work, from the base, rescuing the theoretical and methodological arsenal of Marxism-Leninism, we managed to rise in five successive elections: from 2% to 11%; from 11% to 18%; from 18% to 41%; from 41% to 54%; and from 54% to 65%. From there we cannot know if we could have continued climbing because the law prevents us from being candidates again; We have already completed three periods.

On the other hand, there is the satisfaction of having changed the lives of thousands of people, of having made the lives of hundreds of thousands of people cheaper, not only in Recoleta, but also throughout Chile, through various popular projects, but also having simplified life and facilitated access to numerous things that people did not even imagine. What remains is the satisfaction of people when they celebrate and thank the pharmacy, the optician, the bookstore, the popular real estate agency, the popular rehabilitation center, which have had an unimaginable impact. Furthermore, people appreciate both access to culture and cultural participation. The families that have outstanding athletes who have received support from the municipality, among them we have greatly enjoyed Berdine Castillo’s gold. Seeing the gratitude of the youth who have managed to have the university scholarship, which is a simple and humble scholarship, but which was complemented with another food scholarship, all of this is very satisfactory and is what we have left after 12 years of management.

Is there a particular project in Recoleta that marks a turning point in these 12 years?

I think it’s the project as a whole. If one analyzes it from a communication point of view, the popular pharmacy will always be the one that marks the turning point in terms of how well known the Recoleta project and the communist project are for local governments.

But here is a project that is much more comprehensive, that has to do with a different society. The educational reform that was carried out in Recoleta, which after 12 years leads us to have the best historical communal scores in the standardized tests that exist in our country, which are not a good indicator, but ultimately it is the indicator that we have. The health reform, the increase in the resolution of primary health, beyond what some discuss, including the Prosecutor’s Office and the powerful. What people feel at the base is that it has been tremendously beneficial to the community.

And the biggest frustration?

The chasing. The absence of a deeper democracy and the role of the media. Frustration at the fact that when there are no arguments, we resort to destroying the opponent. This not only generates frustration, but also greatly discourages people from participating in politics, because they see that finally the de facto powers settle in and take power and the government, in such a way that they prevent the policies that benefit them from being developed. further.

That is, frustration exists within one, not outside of one, and has to do with the fact that the expectations one has of the environment are not met. In this case, one would have hoped, or I would have hoped, that in the face of such robust evidence of public policies that really serve people, there would have been more genuine support and a more authentic determination to replicate them. We were surrounded by many people, even mayors, who came to take photos when things were going well, but who never had any commitment to transforming municipalism in Chile. They were only committed to their re-elections, and we see that to this day. I think that speaks of the institutional poverty and also the cultural poverty of our country.

I imagine that your encounters with neighbors are countless. Of those, which one or which do you hold with the most emotion?

I believe that these meetings have three moments. At the beginning there were rapprochement meetings and where the raw material for the program came from. All the popular initiatives were born from a pain, a need, an anguish of the people of Recoleta. When they challenged us that there were no accessible medications, or that there was no infrastructure where young people could meet, the Open School program was born. When they presented us with the need for greater culture, that led us to bring Womad, the Dieciochero Carnival, Mil Guitarras para Víctor Jara, the Popular Theater School, the Popular Music School, and not only access, but also cultural participation. The Popular Bookstore, for example, is a wonderful project, together with the record store and the popular publishing house of Recoleta, which ends up being a publishing house that publishes things as relevant as Hugo Fazio’s economic letters, which surprisingly no one had published in 50 years.

The second moment is the meeting to celebrate the popular initiatives that arose from these first demands. And the third moment is that of sincere affection, gratitude and gratitude for the impact that these initiatives have had. A few days ago we went out to the streets with a team to visit a process of organizing street vendors, mostly workers. People approached us to say: “You don’t know how our lives have changed, everything we saved on medications” or “the popular rehabilitation center has given us medical benefits that the system does not offer and that are not considered a right.” ”. Even people from other communes told us: “Thanks to you, we have a popular pharmacy in our commune.” They appreciate the defense and consistency of the discourse, the persistence in criticizing the model and the denial of the resignation that abounds today. I believe that people are finally experiencing a cultural transformation that supports the systematic increase in voting towards a political party that has suffered the most brutal campaign of misinformation, hatred and discrimination in the history of Chile, not only now against the Recoleta project, but during 111 years.

You mention the issue of culture, which goes beyond Recoleta and becomes a seal.

Yes, because there is no political battle that can be won without the cultural battle. Fidel Castro always said: “The fundamental battle is the battle of ideas.” It is about disputing common sense from the base, not that disastrous common sense that the media servile to the model install.

Media and journalistic corruption creates a way of thinking that places the focus of concern on the consequences of the model, not its causes. Everyone talks about crime, but no one talks about inequality. Everyone mentions how difficult life is, but no one talks about capitalism, the accumulation and concentration of wealth in the richest 1% in Chile. Everyone complains about social problems, like people on public roads.

This is a country that has ended up mistreating the poorest so that those who are not poor can live in peace. This is seen in the evictions, in the forced removal of the rucos, in the forced displacements of street workers. If the model is permanently expelling people from the formal economy to the informal economy, how can anyone imagine a society without people working on the streets if there are no jobs? These are the most useful years for all the big businessmen, who complain in the press every day saying that the country is bad. They are doing extremely well, earning more money than ever before and yet they constantly complain.

You have been leading the Municipality of Recoleta for 12 years and your plans have radiated nationally. Now municipal elections come with many challenges for those elected. Where do you think the axis of municipal politics should be located?

In what has been the axis of our municipal policy: making life cheaper, simpler and easier for the inhabitants of the communes. Luis Emilio Recabarren said that the first challenge and the privileged place for the development of politics had to be local governments, because it was the only place where democracy was permanently within the reach of the people. And the objective had to be, in a context of savage capitalism, that the municipalities were at the service of making the lives of the inhabitants cheaper, simpler and easier.

It would be ideal for this to occur in a context where municipalities had more powers, resources and powers, but unfortunately we live in a country that, despite some incipient changes such as decentralization in the regions, still concentrates all power and powers in the central state. I remember that the current Government promised that the President would leave La Moneda with less power than he had when he entered, and I still don’t see that.

“I am very calm about May 29”

For different episodes, you are one of the mayors with the most coverage in the media. How do you see your relationship with the media?

Before, the media worried about knowing what those in power did not want to be known. Today, they only report what power allows them and wants people to know and believe. The right to information no longer exists. And it is not that I have attracted interest as mayor, but that there are media outlets that have tried to destroy our project from day 1, while others have tried to promote and disseminate the initiatives that they consider beneficial for the people.

I start from the basis that there are no neutral media; There is no neutrality in the media today. Since some media outlets are so abusive and there is so much journalistic harassment, lack of respect and consideration, it seems that some journalists seek to be the protagonists, not the interviewee. For this reason, we came to the conclusion of giving less importance to these media and worrying about disseminating what interests us, without lending ourselves to those who seek to misinform.

I think that in Chile the use of fake news as a way of doing journalism has been legitimized. We need a media law that imposes a basis of responsibility. The model in Chile assumes that the State has no role in society, the harshest neoliberalism, and that is why Recoleta bothers the powerful so much. But we affirm the opposite: the State must be present.

Daniel, these are turbulent times, especially with what is coming on May 29. What is coming for you in the future, a candidacy for senator or representative?

I am very calm about May 29. I think there is a deep political motivation behind it. In recent days, we have seen the weakness of the work of the Prosecutor’s Office, the lack of professionalism and rigor, the manipulation and the delicate relationship it has with the media, leaking information until the end. I am calm because I am fully convinced of my innocence and that all the crimes that I am accused of are going to fall because not even the material budgets for their occurrence are met. I think that the formalization has been built only so that the Prosecutor’s Office can request preventive detention, but convincing a judge is different.

If they could not convince a judge in the case (Juan Miguel) Fuente-Alba (former commander in chief of the Army prosecuted for financial crimes), with a shameful investigation led by the same prosecutor who is leading ours, much less will they be able to do so here. I don’t think buying medicines or technical aids is a crime. Trying to turn well-intentioned actions into crimes is harder than it seems.

Deciding about my future is not something personal. Recoleta developed this project because the Communist Party of Recoleta, in 2001, made a strategic plan to reach the mayor’s office and transform it. There was a terrible evaluation of the previous mayor’s office, known for corruption, and the Communist Party set out to change that in a long process, accepting defeats as conditions for victory. This was a decision of the people and the party. What happens in the future will depend on what the people and the party say about Daniel Jadue. I will always be available to take on the challenges that the people of Chile and my party impose on me.

I have had a long period of academic, professional and technical work that led to a mayoralty like the one everyone knows. What happens in the future is a decision that we will make collectively, assuming the costs and benefits. Now, I also leave open the possibility of resting and dedicating more time to my family, especially my daughter, my loved ones and my partner, because the time spent in this activity has had a very great personal cost.

“Some who call themselves leftists have ended up doing everything they previously criticized.”

Globally, where do you place the challenges, responses or proposals that the left should embody today?

First, the left has to look at itself and define whether it wants to continue being leftist or not, because the concept of left is born from a transformative will. There is a part of the left that no longer wants to transform, but simply wants to improve drop by drop a model that does not resist improvement. The left must overcome the complex of the failure of real socialisms, such as the Soviet experience. Furthermore, it must once again offer a horizon for overcoming capitalism and building a real socialism. Finally, I think you must assume that it requires an internal cultural transformation, since it is highly permeated by neoliberalism. These are short, medium and long term challenges.

In the short, medium and long term, people require answers. How do they do it from the left sector?

First, by not resigning or getting on your knees. In recent times, some who call themselves leftists have ended up doing everything they previously criticized. This destroys any possibility that the left could be an alternative and gives the extreme right an opportunity to establish itself as the only protesting sector of the model. We ended up saving the Isapres, the AFP, militarizing La Araucanía and approving repressive laws that do not solve the fundamental issue of crime. Furthermore, we end up isolating ourselves in the world. Corruption is not only a problem of money, but also of using powers, attributions and resources for purposes other than the original one. It is a form of corruption when one is elected by proposing A and comes to government by doing B.

The left has proposals, but it must be braver to install and dispute them, returning to work at the base. Today we have a left absorbed by the political superstructure; Some believe that making small legal changes will solve society’s problems. I believe that a much more radical reform is needed, including a new Political Constitution. I am ashamed that there are political parties that prioritize solving their own problems instead of those of the citizens. After two failed constitutional processes, politicians want to debate political reforms without having resolved fundamental problems such as pensions, health, security and education. It’s a bad sign.

There is always talk of people’s latent discomfort, and we all know that, in that context, the successful deployment of the extreme right arises. How do you see this in Chile?

I insist that the successful deployment of the extreme right is due to the left not doing its job. If there were a rebellious left, committed to social transformations, working at the base, the extreme right would have no chance. But when you have a left that is used to earning good salaries in positions where people put them, and then you do the opposite of what was promised, why could it be an alternative?

The left must be very self-critical with what it has done, even when it is in Government. Today, I perceive that the real left has very little influence in the Government. What could a Government say that forgave the debt of all the Isapres in one way or another, but did not approve the forgiveness of the CAE? I saw Óscar Landerretche the other day, saying that it is immoral to forgive debts, but he remained completely silent regarding the forgiveness of the Isapres debts. For Landerretche, it is immoral to forgive debts generated by a universally recognized social right, but it is not immoral to forgive those who have withdrawn millions in profits in recent years. That left that Landerretche represents has lost all right to guide society.

And how do you see the left in Latin America, particularly Chile?

The first thing is that I always discuss what it means to be leftist. I do not buy this argument of the good left, which pays homage to the United States and does what it dictates to govern, and the other bad left, which is the one that confronts the North American. For me, there is only one left and it is the one that does not give in to imperialism, anywhere in the world, because it defends the self-determination of the people, and also defends their economic and political sovereignty.

Therefore, I believe that Chile does not play any role in that left. There is a left that had a time of prominence, but due to its own mistakes weakened the advance of the left in Latin America and opened the door to the extreme right. However, I am confident that the extreme right has nothing good to offer the people. We are seeing it in Argentina, we saw it in Brazil and in other places. When the extreme right or the right govern, and when those who were previously social democrats also do so, they only generate profits for large companies and transnational companies.

I think we have to dream again of a different world for the left, but also deinstitutionalize ourselves from the political superstructures that today have the left fighting over parliamentary quotas and other things, instead of doing the work at the base.

The left is the only one that can get the world out of the global crisis that capitalism has put it in. This crisis today is expressed in the destruction of productive factors through war, in intervention, and in the annulment of the self-determination of certain peoples, in such a way that there is no alternative to the empire. Today the wars are between capitalists, not between capitalists and alternative models, and they are devouring the world, destroying everything they can to keep everything for themselves. If a left does not emerge capable of questioning everything that capitalism does today, this will continue with a very unfavorable prognosis.

Questioning capitalism, do you think the answers are found there?

Capitalism, with its chimera and this original lie of indefinite growth, suggests that in the end someone is going to be left with everyone and the rest with nothing. That is the natural tendency towards monopoly, the natural tendency towards concentration taken to the extreme. That is why today Ukraine must be destroyed so that the same companies that have rebuilt Iraq continue to be able to rebuild. Thus, a part of the world is being destroyed so that North American companies and some European partners can continue building.

Societies are destabilized with the theory and politics of chaos, and in Chile there are people like (Evelyn) Matthei, for example, who are scandalized by the things one can say, but not by poverty. They are scandalized by what a leader may say or by the name of a popular pet, but not by the miserable pensions that exist in Chile. They are shocked by superficial things, with the help of media and journalistic corruption, but they are not shocked that a mother has to walk two thousand kilometers to finance her son’s illness because the necessary medication is inaccessible, and no one is responsible. . They are not scandalized by pain, poverty, suffering; They are only shocked that someone would damage their comfortable lives.

I couldn’t help but ask you about your current perspective on the situation in Palestine.

I believe that the only solution for Palestine is to overcome capitalism and the superstructure of capitalism that are national states. The only viable solution today, which implies a tremendous cultural change in both societies, is the installation of a plurinational State where any person, of any religion and from any part of the world, can live enjoying full rights.

The conflict developing today in Palestine is another expression of this savage capitalism that seeks to take over everything. I don’t see this only as a problem in Palestine. I cannot separate the war of extermination in Gaza and the genocide in Gaza from the blockade of Cuba. I cannot separate the genocide that Israel commits with the support of the United States and Europe in Gaza, from the sanctions on Venezuela and Nicaragua. I cannot separate what is happening in Gaza from what is happening in the Congo, in Rwanda, in South Africa and in any part of the world where the most vulnerable are being attacked and exterminated so that those who live better in the world can continue to have more. .