Page 3 - MONTT LATIN AMERICAN MAGAZINE, MARCH, 2018, ENGLISH

-Editorial-
The Return to the Policy of the Consensus
”The opposition presents difficulties, is fragmented, and needs to be recomposed and to redefine its role. It lacks a firm alliance and a project with a vision of future. What is most relevant to Piñera’s success is that a large part of his plans, programs and projects coincide with the main social demands of Chile today. “
Santiago Montt, President of Montt Group
majority, which makes the new government’s manoeuvring field difficult and forces it to deal with Bachelet’s reforms with subtlety and delicacy, because the opposition will be vigilant. There is no doubt that to reach his goal, President Piñera will have to return to the old policy of the agreements and negotiations that were the characteristic of democratic governments since 1990. His situation is quite similar to that faced by the President from Argentina, Mauricio Macri.
He and his ministers will have to fight for unity and consensus, recover the culture of dialogue and collaboration, as the Head of State himself pointed out in his first political speech, a few hours after taking office.
Because of that, the first thing that Piñera did was to call for five major national agreements: children, citizen security, timely and quality health for all, peace in the Araucanía region, and, to achieve development and defeat poverty, during the next eight years. Regarding this last ambitious objective, it is possible to achieve it, if the centre-right continues to govern for almost a decade. In fact, the per capita income of Chile is already US $ 25,000 per year and that of Portugal, of US $ 30,000 for the same period. So the idea is not at all absurd, but the efforts to achieve it will have to be significant and at all levels.
The administration of President Sebastian Piñera, despite the obstacles, can be successful, because it plays in his favour the price of copper on the rise, the business confidence that will revitalize and the deep desire for stability that Chileans have, which was shown with their vote.
The worst obstacle could come from the Congress, due to the lack of consensus, due to a recalcitrant opposition that could defend, at all costs, preposterously, what it considers as the reformist legacy of the government of President Michelle Bachelet.
But we must not forget that the opposition presents difficulties, is fragmented, and needs to be recomposed and to redefine its role. It lacks a firm alliance and a project with a vision of future. Notwithstanding the above, what will most play in favour of this new government is that a large part of its plans, programs and projects coincide with the main social demands of Chile today. That is: work, pensions, education, health, migration, poverty and quality of life.
The new President of Chile, Sebastian Piñera, hopes to boost economic growth again; rectify several of the most emblematic reforms of the outgoing government and, as if that were not enough, in less than a decade, transform Chile into a developed country. The problem is that although he won by an important 54 percent, he will have to face several challenges. The most immediate one will be to boost a declining economy, with surprises at the last minute, as the fiscal deficit was 2,1 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and not 1,7 percent as indicated by the outgoing government, an amount not less, since the difference means 1,100 million dollars. The situation will first have to be resolved, and then proceed to stimulate the expansion.
It will not be easy: in these four years the country lost its capacity to grow; it lowered the investment to ridiculous levels; almost no new jobs were created, except in the public sector, where spending on bureaucracy increased by more than six billion dollars; business credibility and trust almost vanished and, still, there are two million Chileans in situation of poverty. In addition, part of the new administration’s work will be limited by Bachelet’s reforms, many of which are considered badly designed and poorly formulated, therefore they will have to be rectified.
Besides, the structure of political power in Chile changed completely as of November 19, 2017. Due of the new electoral scheme that replaced the binominal system, a third force entered the Congress, the Frente Amplio, (a coalition of small parties headed by the former leaders of the student protests of 2011) that broke the balance, the correlation of forces. So far, without counterweights, two blocks fought to dominate the political scene, since democracy returned in 1990. Chile’s governing coalition Chile Vamos was left with 19 senators and 72 deputies, while the new centre-left opposition, with 16 seats in the Upper House and 43 in the Lower one. The radical left, precisely the Frente Amplio, rose from three to 20 deputies and counts, for the first time, with a senator.
The advance of this group is considered the biggest tremor that Chilean politics has had in recent decades. Chile Vamos, President Piñera’s party, increased its legislative representation in both Houses, but without achieving an absolute
Montt Latin American Magazine p3