Social and political tension intensifies in Chile 20 days before elections to change Pinochet constitution

31 years ago, Chile’s military dictatorship handed over the government to Patricio Aylwin, a Christian Democrat who had been supported by a wide range of center and left parties. A period began framed by a basic consensus, caring for democracy after 17 years of totalitarian obscurity. General Augusto Pinochet, who had reserved command of the army and de facto control of the armed forces, was also to be held in check. This understanding and commitment of Chilean society cracked with Pinochet’s death and ended up falling with the big protests at the end of 2019 demanding social improvements. With all these basic chords broken and no new ones created, with a weakened government and a president with an approval rating of just 9%, the country is entering an election year starting in three weeks with uncertain constituent elections. But it was the devastating second wave of the pandemic and the government’s veto attempt to withdraw workers’ money from pension funds that ended up triggering an unprecedented crisis in Chile.

It all exploded with a clash between Piñera and Congress over a controversial third withdrawal from pension funds, as a form of compensation for the economic ravages of the pandemic. The private pension system, AFP, has a long and very controversial history in Chile. They were created in 1981 during the Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1999) by his minister José Piñera, brother of the current president.. The mechanism was a pioneer in setting up an individually funded system which was proposed at the time as an alternative to the failed pay-as-you-go system. Until the workers who contribute monthly see their accounts lose weight instead of gaining weight as promised. From 2011, when the first pensions started to be paid, it was discovered that the model could not keep its promise to cover up to 70% of the last salary. They paid half the salary and most receive less than the minimum wage of around $ 400. Since then, numerous demonstrations against the system have been recorded and a powerful citizen movement of “No + AFP”.

Despite popular pressure, last week no reform bill had managed to get past a commission in Congress. The administrators of the pension funds are very powerful and have invested the money in almost every area of ​​the Chilean economy. After five weeks of quarantine due to the Covid pandemic in much of the country and the resurgence of social protests, Congress overwhelmingly approved the withdrawal of up to 10% from private pension funds on Friday, a measure widely supported by society. The law was promoted by the center-left opposition, but it also had the support of sectors of the ruling party frustrated by Piñera’s comings and goings in providing social assistance. The initiative was challenged by the government before the Constitutional Court (TC), which had already ruled against a similar initiative calling for a second withdrawal. And this time he did the same: he rejected Piñera’s protection and led to a harsh political defeat.

Sunday evening, the president presented an alternative plan: issue a deposit of 200,000 pesos ($ 285) for those who found themselves with their accounts at zero with the two previous withdrawals from the AFP accounts authorized in July and January. But the aid comes with another highly controversial initiative, he suggests. a 2% increase in employer contributions and another contribution from the State to balance the accounts of directors. The proposal goes against the one approved by Parliament and has angered employers and employees alike. Port workers have gone on strike and several other unions called for a general strike on Friday to overturn the president’s decision to use TC. A group of 21 opposition deputies and senators said in a statement that Piñera “gives more resources to the AFP, which leads to strengthening of an exhausted system, and also taxes the middle classes, in particular small and medium-sized entrepreneurs, with new taxes ”.

University of Santiago political scientist Marcelo Mella told AFP that “the way the president makes decisions is not only technocratic, but also extremely elitist, with little conversation, and part of the unease that characterizes Chilean society today is the demand for a democracy where the beneficiaries of policies are more considerate ”. Clearly seen in the polls, Piñera only has 9% approval left, the lowest level for any president since democracy returned. He arrived in La Moneda with nearly 54% of the vote in the second round of 2017. Right-wing parties that brought him back to power said they were coming back to stay 20 years, only behind a disastrous government that had the country plunged into crime, that the Patagonian region of La Araucanía was ungovernable due to the actions of the Mapuche, that the economy could grow much more and that immigration had no control. Four years later, he received rejection from those who said he would be “the best president in Chilean history”. “The only thing his proposal succeeds is to deepen the mistrust generated by him and his government; it is late and exacerbates an institutional conflict that is settling in Congress, ”said Senator Manuel José Ossandón.

The pandemic had fallen like a balm for Piñera. He managed to put aside the protests that put him on the ropes and allowed him to show his skills as a major logistics and commercial operator. He immediately negotiated the purchase of vaccines and started vaccinating them on December 24, 2020the same day, the first 10,000 doses of Pfizer and BioNTech arrived. Chile has become the example of Latin America and much of the world. The plan was to vaccinate around 5 million people in the first quarter of the year and reach 80% of the population, or around 15 million people, by the end of the first half of the year. And it succeeds. Even, everything indicates that he will exceed his goal. But this success has a B-side that has become like a boomerang: the population relaxed and a devastating second wave ensued.

The government had done its job to help this setback. He made the measures more flexible, granting vacation permits, reopening cinemas, bars, gymnasiums and reducing the curfew.. He also refused to close the Santiago airport, as Chile became the fourth country to enter the highly contagious British strain B.117. In a few weeks, the Covid exploded again. It was first in the areas where people went on vacation and, later, in which they returned, in that of Santiago and the rest of the metropolitan area. Classes had to be suspended, people returned to imprisonment and millions of people in the nightmare of unemployment or a sharp drop in their income. Constituent elections and elections for regional and municipal authorities, scheduled for April 10 and 11, have been postponed for one month. The announcement of a $ 6,000 million aid package to ease the economic hardships of millions of Chileans was viewed by all sectors as late and insufficient. It was then that the pressures began to make a third withdrawal of 10% of the money AFP taxpayers consider to be his and confiscated. Piñera had no better idea than to resort to the help of the Constitutional Court to stop the bleeding of the system imagined by his own brother. These judges had helped him before, but this time they knew popular bad humor could take them too. They rejected the government’s plan and ratified that of Congress.

“That day, the president put an end – symbolically – to his hectic second mandate, because, from now on, he will only have to administer what he can. Whatever happens with the 10% – the approved project or the one that the executive will enter in Congress today -, Piñera has already inflicted a catastrophic and irreversible defeat“Wrote columnist Germán Silva Cuadra in The counter.

In this climate of tension and fracture, Chile is preparing to elect 155 voters as well as mayors and councilors on the weekend of May 15 and 16. He will also vote for the regional governors elected for the first time; Until now, they were appointed by the executive. It remains to be seen whether this respite from the democratic exercise manages to decompress the situation to reach the presidential elections in November with a remainder. Some believe it is too long with such a weakened government and in the corridors of the Congress of Valparaíso, there is talk of a kind of impeachment.

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