Page 7 - MONTT LATIN AMERICAN MAGAZINE, DECEMBER, 2021

A conversation with UDI senator Juan Antonio Coloma in the corridors of Congress was one of the factors that he came up with the formula to change the Constitution through a plebiscite. This had a negative political effect on his sector, which came to consider him a traitor, for which he stayed away for months from the first line of decisions of the Broad Front, to which he would return with his presidential candidacy.
The President’s Program
Thus, Chile is entering a totally new phase of its development today, with a Head of Government, the youngest in history, accompanied by a group that never lived under the military regime, that rejects the neoliberal scheme and that seeks to create a State of well-being, structured on the basis of the demands of the social outbreak of October 18, 2019.
In tax matters, he proposes to increase tax collection by five percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in four years to finance social reforms, under a commitment of “fiscal responsibility” and gradual implementation of the changes. The plan includes raising taxes on higher income taxpayers, companies, fuels and establishing a royalty on mining companies, as well as lowering the consumption tax (VAT); decrease exemptions; apply green taxes and various measures against evasion and avoidance.
Regarding retirements, initially the President-elect announced the end of the Pension Systems Administrators (AFP) system, although later he said that he would study the situation again. His intention is to reform the pension system and create a pay- as-you-go scheme plus a Universal Basic Pension.
Regarding health, the Social Security Institutions, Isapres, which are private insurance, would be replaced by voluntary complementary insurance. This is how the Universal Health Fund (FUS) would be organized, which will finance care in public and private centers and will increase public spending in that area by 1.5 of GDP. Regarding the labor sector, the hours dedicated to work should be progressively reduced to 40 hours a week and the minimum wage increased, providing special subsidies for the hiring of women.
In education, it is expected to achieve a better economic situation for the professions, universal forgiveness of student debts; In the area of human rights, a Permanent Qualifying Commission will be organized to
review the cases that occurred during the military regime of Augusto Pinochet and an investigation and search system for detained and disappeared individuals will be created. In the area of security, the Ministry of Security, Civil Protection and Citizen Coexistence is expected to be created; carry out a structural reform of the Carabineros de Chile; install a prosecutor’s office with supra-territorial powers to prosecute complex crimes, such as drug trafficking, money laundering and corruption, a new arms and ammunition control system and replace the “Anti- terrorist Law” with a new regulation that protects democratic life in accordance with international human rights standards.
In Araucanía, they are looking for territorial restitution that includes the question of old lands. They also hope to promote a decrease in the price of housing; legislate to ensure free and voluntary abortion; create a comprehensive law on gender violence; a national plan for LGBTIAQ + social rights with a change of name and sex from the age of 14. Also, organize an environmental institutionality adapting it to the current situation of water scarcity and the climate crisis; guarantee the human right to water and sanitation and define a roadmap to face the climate crisis and sign the Escazú Agreement.
Expanding the Coalision
However, the triumph of the extreme left or hard will be restricted by the configuration that Congress will have as of next March, where it will be very difficult to organize majorities. And to carry out this program, relevant political agreements are required. The 155-seat Chamber of Deputies is made up of 79 deputies from the left and 76 from the right. Of a total of 50 senators, half are from the right and the other half from the left; exactly 25 each. In addition, both chambers are very divided in their composition with representatives of very different parties, which means plurality, but also adds complexity when making decisions. To pass certain laws, 50 percent plus one vote is required, while for constitutional reforms and other laws, super majorities of 4/5 or 2/3 are required, depending on their nature. The new authorities need to broaden their party base, hence the president-elect invited members of the Socialist Party (PS) to join the new administration. It is not yet clear whether other forces will join the PS, such as the Party for Democracy (PPD), the Radical Party (PR); Partido Liberal, (PL) and Nuevo Trato, a Chilean center-left political platform that groups together social democrats,
liberals and independents, with which a block called Democratic Socialism would be organized and what some argue would be “a government and two coalitions ”. That is, if in the next cabinet, the PS would have the most important place, but this second coalition would actively participate in the political committee in order to avoid the idea that somehow it would have taken the body of first and second category parties. The Christian Democrats took down the PS and announced that it would be in opposition to Boric.
The next few hours will be very important in the attempt of the president-elect to expand his coalition beyond the Communist Party and the Broad Front, which is a political and electoral coalition founded on January 21, 2017, by parties and movements of the left, citizens and of reformist liberal orientation. It is made up of the Democratic Revolution party, the Communes Party, the Social Convergence Party, the UNIR Movement and the Common Force.
Boric’s conglomerate is Convergencia Social, an amalgam of three groups from the Frente Amplio that hope to fear a hegemonic superiority over the Democratic Revolution. This merger includes the Autonomist Movement, led by Boric and his close associates from the University of Chile, as well as the mayor of Valparaíso, Jorge Sharp; the Libertarian Left, of Gael Yeomans and the New Democracy, of the trade unionist Cristián Cuevas (ex-PC). The latter, like Mayor Sharp, withdrew because Boric decided to sign the constitutional agreement in his personal capacity, which he even agreed with the Udi and which meant in part the call for a plebiscite to create a new Constitution. Social Convergence, has eight deputies, its members follow Boric since the student protests of 2011; on their website they define themselves as promoters of a “socialist, libertarian and feminist society”, and with “transformations that involve the redistribution of power and radical democracy for a new social order” According to Juan Negri, director of Political Science and Government and International Studies at the Italian University Torcuato Di Tella: “This is a much more ambitious left in terms of what can be achieved from power. One of Boric’s main criticisms of the traditional left is that it was quite neoliberal, quite timid, and that it somehow conformed to the canons of the economic model promoted by Pinochet, not at all proactive in its desire for redistribution. And what Boric comes to propose is a break with that past and the intention of at least a slightly more radical and ambitious agenda “
Boric, the New President (BBC)
Boric, Wins Election (Deutsche Welle)