“Allende is back”: euphoric, the regional left appropriates the political turn in Chile

CARACAS.- Nicolas maduro it took very few hours to sing about the victories of others. “After so much mobilization, repression and pain, the Chilean people are starting a new path. They gave a clear signal on their energetic rejection of savage neoliberalism by the popular vote ”, pontified the“ president of the people ”of Caracas.

Yesterday was a holiday in the region not only for revolutionaries and leftists, also for the progressives when the surprising defeat of Correísmo in Ecuador still burns. The advance of the left in Chile, and in particular the independents, drew automatic applause beyond the members of the Puebla group. It didn’t matter that some, like Maduro himself, were located in the political and social poles of many of the demands that were already looming on the horizon to be part of the new Magna Carta.

“He’s dead now though Pinochet. Allende lives again. Since 1973, only today’s Chilean youth have really managed to change country, ”Colombian left leader Gustavo Petro said on Twitter.

Photos of Allende and references to the “great avenues” in the ousted president’s latest speech have popped up everywhere. “They have reason to be happy. The left dominates in the results and the status of the traditional parties is weakened. Chile could begin to move towards a model of greater state intervention in the economy, a feature that is booming around the world due to the pandemic», Confirms the internationalist Mariano de Alba.

But one thing is the partial victory both in the Constituent Assembly and in the municipalities and another is that its supposed direct benefit for the Chavista regime in search of allies to avoid international pressure, the revival for the radical candidate of Peru , Pedro Castillo, or the opening of a constitutive channel for Colombia of protests and its labyrinth.

“Each country has its particularities and the rise of the left in Chile will not necessarily end in an alliance with Maduro or other groups of the regional left. The independents also won an important victory and it will be necessary to see how the constituent process evolves ”, underlines De Alba.

The analyst Jacobo Garcia it touches the keys to the complex reality in the region, aggravated by the pandemic but which has already begun to be glimpsed during the anti-government wave of two years ago. “There are common elements between the different national contexts, but at the same time there are different cycles and results: Colombia collapses, Chile consolidates, Ecuador finds itself, Bolivia reconsolidates…” , assures the expert from Quito.

Precisely in Colombia, the current protests of the national strike are compared to what happened in Chile in 2019. Gustavo Petro, an ally of Caracas, took advantage of the presence of young people in the Colombian streets to congratulate the Chileans who “managed to agree on a constituent and obtained today, thanks to the popular vote, a result historical. Pinochetism is dead, ”he predicted.

For the moment, only the lesser leaders insist on the need to modify the Colombian Constitution. “I think it’s possible, but it might not be the most practical. Colombia already has a progressive constitution in many respects, which must be protected and developed. But neither can we deny that there are a lot of freaks out of the Constitution who were not well placed, ”he recalls in THE NATION the analyst Felipe Rey Salamanca, who cites some of these lunatics: the presidential system of government that prevents institutional solutions to crises like the current crisis; a “centralized and unequal” form of state; a very dysfunctional Congress; a very slow judicial system; non-deliberative participation mechanisms that can be blocked; and, in general, “a structure that allows many political and economic privileges, from different elites”.

How to introduce reforms without resorting to the mechanism of the Constituent Assembly? In Colombia, there is no light at the end of the tunnel, between a Constituent Assembly that seems impossible and the current blockade, and when the vast majority of the country feels the immediate need for reforms. Rey Salamanca has engaged in an intermediary mechanism, a mixed reformist Assembly, made up of citizens and political representatives, with “the specific mission of proposing a package of deep reforms to Congress, so that it can deal with them directly or call for a consultation or referendum. “

The Constituent Assembly was also one of the flags that Castillo waved in the first round in Peru, although between the whereabouts it is not very clear if he will finally bet on forcing that process.

With all eyes on Chile, It remains to be seen what effect the procedures of the new Constitution will have on the election of the president at the end of the year., especially in the face of “Bolivarian fury”, as Chavism puts it, riding once again in the so-called great homeland.

“For the left, it is risky to dominate the constituent process because in itself it does not produce real changes. On the contrary, they risk being frustrated when many realize that the Constitution may have changed, but that the problems are structural and governance, ”says De Alba.