The Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han says, in About power, that “the more powerful the power, the more stealthily it operates” and he is right. That is why one of the most powerful positions in the Republic of Chile is that of Undersecretary of the Interior, a position that, although it seems to be second-rate, is reserved for people with a strong desire for power and whose essential characteristic must be discretion. and sobriety, so as not to overshadow the Minister of the Interior and also to keep the thousands of secrets that come to him every day not only from the shadows of the Palace and the WhatsApp of friends and rivals, but through minutes and telephone calls from the senior officers of the Carabineros, the PDI or the National Intelligence Agency.
Thus, the Undersecretary of the Interior is the first filter, the first great fuse that exists in the public administration of this country and, for this reason, a position reserved for disciplined and loyal colonels, who must be willing to put their chests before the bullets. and assume that cost at any cost, to prevent scandals from affecting not only the current tenant in the ministry but, especially, whoever is in the Presidency.
No matter how inept your general is, a good colonel is never going to let you down and that is something that any undersecretary must be willing to accept.
Michelle Bachelet’s former Undersecretary of the Interior 1, Patricio Rosende, knows this well, the highest-level official to be condemned for the disaster in the alert system, after 27/F, and Mahmud Aleuy knows it well, who, although he was not formalized by “Operation Hurricane” (the assembly of Carabineros intelligence against Héctor Llaitul and other members of radical organizations), he was classified as politically responsible for one of the most aberrant episodes in Chilean police history.
The current Undersecretary of the Interior, the socialist Manuel Monsalve, also knows this very well, who was one of the first in his sector to realize – when the last presidential race began – that the future was with Gabriel Boric and not with the old thirds of the Concertación.
In this way, the “casual” invitation of Monsalve’s daughter to the then candidate of the Frente Amplio to eat sopaipillas at the family home, in Concepción, was not a simple step between one side of the Biobío and the other, but a true crossing of the Rubicon for Monsalve.
Already on the other side, his bet bore fruit and that is how he became the operational manager of Chile’s public security and one of the most highly evaluated figures in the cabinet, not only at a citizen level but also at a technical level. In offboth in Carabineros and in the PDI recognize Monsalve as someone who listens, who asks what he does not know and who, furthermore, supports.
The Government is very aware of this, to the point that they removed him from the Ministry of the General Secretariat of the Presidency (Segpres) when the opposition harshly questioned the arrival of the communist Nicolás Cataldo to said undersecretary, to replace him, and they sent him back to Interior, instead of looking for another name to take over there and let Monsalve be promoted. Because? Because there was no one else, on hand, to give the width.
Although it is always repeated that there are no essential people in any job, in the eyes of the rulers there are some who are, such as Monsalve for President Boric and Rodrigo Ubilla for former President Piñera.
For the “chosen one” that is a blessing and a curse at the same time, because it condemns him to always be a colonel, who knows that he will not be able to reach the generalship and not only that, but that at some point they will ask for his weapon, his medals. , and you must exit through the service door.
Nobody thinks that that moment has already arrived for Undersecretary Monsalve. However, few in the spheres of power doubt that evidence of the wear and tear it has suffered is something that Byung-Chul Han also says: that when power “has to expressly emphasize itself, it is already weakened,” since past Several days after the kidnapping of former Venezuelan lieutenant Ronald Ojeda, the official discourse on the undoubtedly necessary secrecy of the investigation began to crack and the one who had to come forward, to be the fuse of the entire scandal, was Monsalve.
The Prosecutor’s Office has already begun to criticize off The investigative management of the PDI and the opposition hits the ANI acidly, and to this is added the whirlwind of doubts that the Venezuelan right installed about the information exchange agreement between Chile and Caracas, which the undersecretary himself reported so happily a few weeks ago , a glove that the Chilean right picked up.
The recent survey Signs/The Counter showed that – when the respondents were asked whether they approve or disapprove the performance of Undersecretary of the Interior in the crisis– 52.5% disapprove of his management, compared to 40.1% who approve, while 7.4% do not know. This is a good indicator of absorption of a difficult and poorly evaluated topic in government management for the undersecretary, considering that it was the
political position with greater exposure to the subject, and even had to answer for the nature and content of the previous visit – already mentioned – made by him to Caracas, as he explained “for a police cooperation agreement.”
All of the above constitutes a significant loss of power for a second-line man who during these two years has accumulated a lot of power, but who is also seeing firsthand how his own management capacity at the helm of the Undersecretariat of the Interior is like a cage. of glass, from which it is very difficult to escape.
