Is Sebastián Piñera the father of the right?

He ended his presidential term with the worst record of a President since the return to democracy, with his family linked to investments in tax havens in another case of investigation into financial irregularities, and subjected to a process for human rights violations. Marta Lagos then indicated: “What remains of the right at the end of the Piñera Government? The truth is that there is almost nothing left” and the academic Álvaro Ramis maintained that the hegemony in his sector “was maintained until 2019, when the social outbreak led him to lose his leadership.” To make matters worse, the first presidential round was won by the far-right José Antonio Kast and Chile Vamos, the former president’s conglomerate, suffered a tough defeat. Despite everything, Sebastián Piñera did not stay still or opt for retirement. At the end of 2022, his activity began to pay off and in 2023 he managed to reestablish himself on the national political scene with a leading role. It is likely that there was not enough time to know what role the former president would play in 2024 and 2025. And perhaps the expectation regarding his legacy is a point of controversy; what he really leaves for the conservative world.

Hugo Guzman. Journalist. “The century”. Santiago. 10/2/2024. After former president Sebastián Piñera died, the mayor of Providencia, Evelyn Matthei, said that “one of the things that makes me most happy is that he was able to see how he was growing in the polls.”

Evelyn Matthei’s assertion has to do with an element that tended to be forgotten today.

The former president ended up, in 2022, scoring only between 15 and 24 percent approval (Mori and Cadem surveys) and with a disapproval between 70 and 80 percent. In the polls he had the worst result for a head of state since the return to democracy.

When his presidential term was ending, revelations of his family’s investments in tax havens occurred and a new case of financial irregularities broke out. The phrase “we are at war against a powerful, implacable enemy,” said at the beginning of the social revolt of 2019, was an icon of his management. Shortly afterward he was subjected to an investigation for human rights violations and crimes against humanity. There were more episodes, such as the questioned role he played in trying to overthrow the President of Venezuela, Nicolás Madura, and his much-discussed trip to Cúcuta.

Thus, in 2022 (in March of that year President Gabriel Boric took office), Sebastián Piñera ended up retreating, he moved to an invisible place within the right, his influence decreased significantly and practically no one spoke of a “Piñera legacy” for the right and the conservative sectors.

Marta Lagos, founder of Latinbarómetro and Mori Chile, told “France24” in 2022: “What remains of the right at the end of the Piñera Government? The truth is that there is almost nothing left. It is a fragmented right…”

At that time, in addition, other better-looking conservative representations emerged and scored blue numbers in the polls, including representatives of the extreme right.

To make matters worse, in the presidential election of November 2021, ending Piñera’s mandate, his coalition, Chile Vamos, was unable to raise a strong candidacy and a forceful proposal, and the winner of the first round was the ultra-conservative José Antonio Kast, of the Republican Party, who incidentally defeated Sebastián Sichel, the candidate from the former president’s sector. Many attributed that defeat to what was the Government of Sebastián Piñera.

In the second round, Chile Vamos had to support the far-right Kast, who also established himself as a leader in the sector, attracting segments of the Independent Democratic Union (UDI), National Renewal (RN), business unions and the military family. .

Álvaro Ramis, Rector of the Christian Humanism Academy University (UAHC), told ElSiglo.cl that Piñera’s hegemony in the conservative world “was maintained until 2019, when the social outbreak led him to lose leadership to the radical right of Kast and the Republicans.”

With all this data at hand, it is clear that two years ago, at least, in the right and conservative sectors, no one attributed leadership to Sebastián Piñera, no one spoke of an ideological inheritance or a political legacy of the former president, no one saw him as the guide. His influence was gone and his role was minimal. He was not the father of the right or the conservative sector.

Far away were the praise and inspiring phrases that are now used in the context of his dramatic death and that place him as the leader to follow and imitate for his great qualities, work capabilities, intelligence and substantive ideas.

Breaking through

Despite everything, Sebastián Piñera did not stay still or opt for retirement. “A tireless worker” as his collaborators define him, Tatán continued to bring together his close team, his former ministers, he continued to actively participate in international right-wing events and from time to time gave interviews to the press.

He went so far as to say that with the social revolt of 2019 they wanted to give him “a non-traditional coup d’état”, along the lines of constructing a story of victimization against that time.

At the end of 2022, his activity began to pay off and in 2023 he managed to reestablish himself on the national political scene with a leading role.

He gave his opinion regarding the second constitutional process, questioned the Government on various matters and made efforts to strengthen Chile Vamos. He built bridges with La Moneda to address certain issues, actively participated in international forums and meetings with former right-wing presidents and conservative academics and even spread Christmas photos with former US President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton.

The defeat of the ultra-conservative proposal for a new Constitution raised by the Republicans in the last plebiscite, Kast’s decline in the polls, a certain oxygenation of Chile Vamos, and the serious problems that afflicted the Government, further reactivated the former president who saw a greater opportunity to play a role from the opposition.

For the rest, as Evelyn Matthei pointed out, he began to do well in the polls and was even beginning to be mentioned as a right-wing presidential candidate for 2025 (regardless of whether he wanted to or not). In an interview with the newspaper La Tercera, the former head of the Executive stated that rising in the polls gave him a “feeling of joy, and also a feeling of justice.”

He resumed meetings with the presidents of the UDI, RN and Evópoli, made contacts with leaders of Amarillos and Democrats, had meetings with legislators and leaders of Chile Vamos, assumed a role as interlocutor, advisor and incident in the steps taken by the opposition, especially everything in how to face the Government critically and face the municipal and gubernatorial elections, addressing issues such as whether or not to alliance with Republicans. Today it is reaffirmed that Piñera aspired to an agreement extended from Democrats, through Chile Vamos, to Republicans.

It helped him that from different areas the conservative sectors managed to establish that 2019 had been an evil, violent, disastrous, destabilizing phenomenon, a octoberism disastrous, leading to the justification of what was done by the former president, victimizing his administration.

Of course he was not alone on that path, he was not the “only leader.” Evelyn Matthei looked very good, looking like the right-wing presidential candidate at every event. José Antonio Kast continued in the front line of the conservative sectors and the opposition despite the plebiscite and the decline in the polls. Manuel José Ossandón persevered as one of the most recognized rebels in the sector, Rodolfo Carter continued to appear, although dejected after the right suffered a serious setback in the plebiscite in La Florida. Karla Rubilar, Piñera’s former minister, with her own political profile, had arrived within the opposition, and Felipe Kast from Evópoli, considered a representative of the “liberal right”, was lurking in the good positions. In some way, the president of the UDI, Javier Macaya, and the president of Evópoli, Gloria Hutt, and the word of conservative intellectuals and academics, gravitated.

Everything indicates that the former president was part of leaderships on the right and the extreme right, of the dispute, dialogues and definitions that were being made, but without him being the one to hegemonize or impose a common narrative or alternative, without counterweights. He had several counterweights.

It did not represent a unique leadership, much less to resolve controversies with the Republicans, for example. There was no Piñera profiled as “the” leader. Although the team and surroundings close to him could be convinced of this. There are opinions like that of Marta Lagos, who said to ElSiglo.cl that despite his recent installation, the former president “was too democratic to be the ‘undisputed’ leader of the right.”

It is likely that time will be dramatically lacking to know what role Sebastián Piñera would finally play in 2024 and 2025, speaking of the short and medium term.

Especially to affirm that he would be the leader of the opposition. Although now that he has passed away, many say that he fulfilled that role. Loreto Cox, in a column in El Mercurio, wrote: “Who knows, in another state of things, where his strength would have led. Would he have managed to definitively convince his sector not to fall into the temptation of extremes, to conclude his project of giving Chile a modern right, open to dialogue and committed to liberal democracy?

Along these lines, Marta Lagos indicated that “Piñera’s death serves the extreme right, now they will have less opposition within their conglomerate.”

Álvaro Ramis stated that with the death of Piñera “a moment of internal dispute opens between the ultra sector of the right and Chile Vamos, led by Evelyn Matthei.”

Controversy and expectation around the legacy, the role of guide

Anyway, Sebastián Piñera died, it seems that now he has become “the” leader.

The guide, example and determining character of the right, the conservatives, the liberals, the supporters of the free market, “of freedom” and the ideas and doctrines of the opposition.

Javier Macaya, president of the UDI, defined him as “the most notable leader that our sector has had in its history”… Ximena Rincón, from Democrats, pointed out that “he was a man who moved from the DC to the right defending convictions… “It becomes a guide that the right should always keep in mind.” The general secretary of RN, Andrea Balladares, expressed that “Sebastián Piñera is an undisputed leader in the sector” and Gloria Hutt, president of Evópoli stated that “we lost a great political leader… it is a very big loss.”

On Radio Universidad de Concepción, Christopher Martínez, an academic in the Department of Public Administration and Political Science of that university, indicated that Piñera was a controversial character, but also “the most important leader in the last 50 or 60 years of the Chilean right.” . “He made decisions and marked public positions even against his own sector, such as supporting the No campaign in the late 1980s.”

What seems clear these days is that from the right and the conservative sectors, what they call “the legacy” of Sebastián Piñera, his role as “contribution to Chile’s democracy,” is going to be strongly established. President Boric affirmed that the former chief executive “was a democrat from the first hour.”

Of course, it could be something different than assigning a certain paternity to what was happening and would happen with the Chilean right and extreme right in the last two years and those to come.

The Rector of the Diego Portales University, Carlos Peña, wrote in El Mercurio that the former president had an “unrestricted and genuine commitment to liberal democracy,” but also that he “failed ( ) to definitively configure a liberal right…”

And Marta Lagos pointed out that “the remaining right-wing leaders are all rather Pinochetite, with a limited vision of the benefits of democracy.”

In fact, in the current situation, perceptions are already emerging that the former president was not achieving his objective among Republicans and that his actions were in an area of ​​expectation rather than definitions and incidents in the conservative world.

Álvaro Ramis, responding to ElSiglo.clmaintained that with Piñera dead “it is difficult to predict which sector will prevail” within the opposition, although “it is logical that Chile Vamos is going to recover space in the municipal elections and Republicans are going to face those elections with difficulties.”

When consulted by this newspaper, the deputy of the Communist Party, Matías Ramírez, stated that the death and funeral of the former head of the Executive, the right “has used it to try to install a figure that allows them to face the next election years and what we will see in “The next few weeks will be an internal struggle to try to capitalize on the votes of that sector and which were better represented by Piñera.”

He added, however, that “it is evident that there is no renewal when those seeking to capitalize are the same ones who competed for more than 30 years on the right and it would show a lack of leadership.”

It may be that, after the days of the funeral and farewell, Sebastián Piñera is a controversial point, now from the perspective of what his legacy really is, where exactly his guide lies, and if it will be effective that he is the “undisputed” leader of the sectors. conservatives of the country.

Because, for example, there is currently a political and programmatic dispute between the traditional right (where Sebastián Piñera’s ideology would be located), and the extreme right (where there was and is opposition to the former president’s ideas), also represented in opposing leaderships.

Perhaps the answer we have to wait for is if, in fact, Sebastián Piñera becomes the father of the conservative sector in Chile.