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After two years of President Boric’s administration, the perception of a government blocked in its initiatives prevails. Added to its installation errors was a contractionary economic policy and then the “plebiscitary tie” in 2022 and 2023 in constitutional matters. He made progress in the 40 hours, the increase in the minimum wage and the basic pension, a new mechanism to compensate for the increase in food prices and the collection of alimony, but he failed in his tax reform and has not made progress in its pension reform nor a resolution of the Isapres crisis that aims to emerge universal health insurance. He abandoned the creation of the state lithium company in favor of an agreement between Codelco (whose poor management lowers copper production) with Ponce Lerou’s SQM and limited himself to a small increase in the mining royalty (a quarter of what it should). It does not have a parliamentary majority nor has it achieved sufficient support in society to push for crucial legislation, while it has not managed to escape from the “security crisis” discourse, despite multiple concessions, which has managed to impose an implacable political and media opposition. .
This situation of blockade forces us to discuss the articulation of the two remaining years of Boric’s government and the preparation of a new government majority that can emerge from the 2025 elections. One that is an alternative to the right allied to the extreme right and to relaunch progressive advances in Chilean society.
The president of the Christian Democracy, Alberto Undurraga, has made a proposal: “what I propose is that we agree on two presidential candidacies, one from the Frente Amplio and the PC and another from Democratic Socialism and the DC, in addition to a common parliamentary list that faces on the right. “So, let these two options be resolved in the first round and it is the citizens who choose with a common parliamentary list to support whoever wins in the first round.” But there are two problems. The first is that it does not clearly commit to voting in the second round for an FA-PC list if it were to go to that stage. If I win you support me, if I don’t win I don’t support you. What agreement can result from such a proposal? The second is that it is situated in a perspective that Undurraga calls “renewing the center-left” and places the PS as part of a current of that type. But it happens that the PS is a party that has confirmed its affiliation to the left in its recent 2023 congress and that did not participate in a “small coalition” list with the DC, the radicals and the PPD in the election of councilors in May of 2023, but on a list with the Frente Amplio, the Communist Party, the regionalists, the liberals and Acción Humanista.
The PS did not stop being left-wing when it built agreements to govern with presidents of the DC between 1990 and 2000 and then with presidents from its ranks between 2000 and 2010 in the Concertación, an understanding of left-wing and center parties. It had the meaning of allowing progress in human rights, growth, employment, social achievements and infrastructure (see based on many struggles) upon the end of the dictatorship. But it was not possible to get out of all the traps that maintained a semi-interdicted democracy and a hybrid economic model that did little to reduce the unequal distribution of income (and increased the concentration and flight of mining income abroad (see This forced us to seek new political perspectives.
Keeping identities and projects diluted ended up serving no one, which happened wrongly after 2006, especially in economic matters. The initial formula completed its cycle and its extension ended in a great distance with the citizens on issues of policy orientation and method of government. This gave rise, among other things, to the emergence of new party forces in the face of growing social frustration, especially among young people. After 20 years, the right democratically came to government in 2010, which had not happened since 1958. A first attempt to break the impasse was to add the PC to a new coalition, which allowed the New Majority to govern in 2014-2018. , but without changing the fundamental situation of absence of consistent action after a transformative project, aggravated by a great lack of cohesion. And there was the return of the right to the government and the serious and questioning social breakdown of 2019 and then the pandemic, with its turbulence and the turn of citizens towards supporting a new progressive generation. This created hope, but failed in its primary mandate of achieving a new constitution and reorienting the development model, giving rise to an advance of the extreme right. This is what now makes no sense to prolong, and what makes Undurraga’s effort valuable.
But a “center-left” connected to the groups that allied themselves with the economic oligarchies is not required. Some broke with their parties and created new ones located on the right (“democrats” and “yellows”, which have former leaders of the DC, the PR, the PPD and the PS who ended up making their positions transparent). They are those who sought to divert broad social support to changes and transformations postulated by the majority forces of the center and left. Its objective has been, and continues to be, to preserve a liberal and elitarian model that requires limited democracy to sustain itself. Contrary to what they mistakenly postulate, it is a totally different scheme from a social democratic one (see Y that does not differ in fundamental issues from the postulates of Matthei and Kast. That is why they are now allied with them.
What could once again energize progressive changes in Chile is to consolidate a “plural left regrouped and open to the progressive center” or a “progressive center regrouped and open to a plural left”, according to each person’s perspective, instead of trying to repeat a forced idea of ”center-left” that ended in a social and political crisis of great proportions.
Gonzalo Martner
