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Halfway through his term, President Gabriel Boric has not yet been able to carry out the profound reforms he expected, explains Franck Gaudichaud, a specialist in Latin American studies and author, among others, of Chile 1970-1973. A thousand days that shook the world (Sylone) .
At the head of the State since March 2022 and elected with the hope of reorienting his country along a progressive line, the young president Gabriel Boric (38 years old), unable to confront the conservative bloc or unite the left around his government, appears to have reoriented its policies.
Luis Reygada: Halfway through his term, what has the man who promised to “reopen the great malls” of socialist President Salvador Allende achieved?
Franck Gaudichaud: Gabriel Boric came to power embodying the hope of a post-neoliberal turn, in a very special context, since it occurred after the social outbreak of 2019. He was driven by very strong demands, especially social, and at the head of a coalition that included to parties further to the left than him (such as the Chilean Communist Party) and fundamentally critical of the twenty years of post-dictatorship Concertación government (between 1990 and 2010), marked by the compromises and even the neoliberal management of power by of the center-left governments during this period.
Thus, Boric arrived with promises of far-reaching reforms in a country in which the private sector is the pillar of society, with absolute control of large, largely liberalized sectors (education, health, pensions, etc.). Broadly speaking, Boric’s hope was for a “new Chile” in which the public sector managed to regain some control over market forces. In all these respects, the results are extremely disappointing.
L. R.: Due to lack of majority in Congress?
F. G.: Yes, clearly, but not only that. The Government is not in a position of strength within the institutions, so it has to negotiate all the time and has ended up governing from the center end, even returning key figures of the Socialist Party to power. The president has not known how to take advantage of the “honeymoon” period of the first six months of his mandate: he bet everything on the approval of the first draft of the Constitution to consolidate a progressive political dynamic. His rejection (by 62% in September 2022 – editor’s note) was a splash of cold water. This defeat harmed the entire left and social movements, in difficulties after a long and rather chaotic electoral cycle that led to a second constitutional process dominated by the extreme right. In the end, this second draft constitution was also rejected, by more than 55% of voters. The government seemed neutralized, unable to regain the political initiative.
Furthermore, the government’s lack of capacity to mobilize its social base and social movements means that it cannot count on broad and structured support that allows it to confront opposition forces. Even less challenge the Chilean oligarchy, which can count on the most conservative and traditional parties to represent its interests.
L. R.: Some progress has been made, however, with polls giving the president an approval rating of between 26% and 30%.
F. G.: Absolutely, which is more than that of its predecessors. After two years, it can still count on a base of support and it is undeniable that it has a certain anchor within the progressive middle classes. But it has lost a lot of ground among the working classes.
There has been some progress on social issues (the working week has been reduced to forty hours, but with new flexible work formulas, minimum wages have been raised, free access to primary healthcare has been facilitated, etc.), but The major structural reforms (especially fiscal and pension reforms) have not been carried out and the hegemonic framework continues to be totally neoliberal capitalist and dominated by the same oligarchy. The disappointment is enormous and is strengthening the extreme right.
L. R.: Has an unfavorable security climate, with an increase in crime, also contributed to this rise?
F. G.: It is true that, in just under six years, Chile has seen its most violent crime rate double, with a clear increase in the activity of groups linked to drug cartels (such as the Venezuelan cartel known as The Aragua train). This violence, sometimes sadly spectacular, affects above all the middle and working classes. However, the figures have shown a slight improvement in recent months, but it is a complex problem, aggravated by the ability of the commercial media to impose issues related to security and crime in the public debate, from an unfavorable angle for the left.
Now, Boric’s response to the problem of cartel violence has also disappointed many of the people who supported him. The reform of the police force, responsible for serious human rights violations, especially in 2019, was never carried out. Gabriel Boric had always refused to militarize the issue of public order, but now, within the framework of the fight against crime, but also within the framework of the conflict with the Mapuche people in the south of the country, he has done so. Here there is a real problem of public policy, of social inequalities, of access to decent jobs, etc., in an issue that is much easier to handle for the extreme right, which obviously advocates extreme militarization based on xenophobic rhetoric. and racist.
L. R.: Are we far from a president of radical leftHow do you like to rate the right?
F. G.: President Boric has always shown a willingness to dialogue, and even to try to create a certain “national unity”, as we saw during the commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the 1973 coup d’état. It is a strategy that bears little fruit when it comes to confront a right that does not want it, that continues to claim – at least in part – the legacy of the dictatorship, that systematically opposes any compromise and that, on the contrary, constantly seeks hysterize any political debate, for example, pointing the finger at the left wing of the government in a country where primary anti-communism is still very present. The recent accidental death of former conservative president Sebastián Piñera, one of those responsible for the repression of the 2019 revolt, and the way in which, despite everything, Boric has exalted his figure republican It has also surprised or even scandalized part of its militant base.
In fact, President Boric has made a series of symbolic gestures that have shown a shift in his ideological position towards the center, to the point of recently claiming the legacy of Christian Democratic President Patricio Aylwin (1990-1994), an important figure in the transition period of the nineties.
This was when the young militant Boric built his political career in opposition to this historical period of transition where the political elite ended up endorsing many of the authoritarian legacies of the dictatorship. Today, we can say that his mandate is part, above all, of the continuity of the transition period and its consensus (neoliberal). Fifty years after the coup d’état, if a comparison must be made, his administration is much more similar to that of Michelle Bachelet and some of the La Concertación governments (1990-2010) than to the profoundly transformative government of the Unidad Popular in the seventies.
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Translation: wind on