Presidential election: “Chile is experiencing polarization and political fragmentation”

Published on : 11/17/2021 – 20:03Modified : 11/17/2021 – 20:07

Such an electoral scenario has never arisen in Chile since the return to democracy in the early 1990s, after 17 years of dictatorship under Augusto Pinochet. The two candidates who dominate the polls for the first round of the presidential election, scheduled for November 21, belong to the two extremes of the local political spectrum, with Gabriel Boric on the side of the radical left and José Antonio Kast on that of the far right.

The last thirty years have seen four personalities from a broad center-left coalition succeed one another, including Michelle Bachelet, who served two terms, and Sebastian Pinera, candidate for the right-wing coalition. After a first four-year term in 2010, he returned to power in 2018, the current Chilean Constitution does not allow for two consecutive terms.

This political landscape changed completely in the space of 24 months. Sebastian Pinera is certainly still in power, he will even remain there until the end of his mandate, in March 2022, after having escaped an impeachment procedure launched in the wake of revelations of the Pandora Papers on the controversial sale of a company. mining. But his calamitous end of his mandate clearly reflects the generalized discredit towards the local political leaders.

“Since the beginning of the 2000s, an upheaval in the political fields has taken place in Latin America, with new actors who are outside the traditional parties”, explains to France 24 Christophe Ventura, research director at Iris and specialist in Latin America. “Chile is a new illustration of this phenomenon. Since 2017, we have seen the emergence of a powerful protest movement, with a strong push from the left and the emergence of new faces. Chile is experiencing polarization and fragmentation. political, ”he adds.

The pitiful legacy of Pinera

This protest was mainly carried by the student movements which for many years demanded better conditions for education, in a country where education is very elitist. The high school students, baptized “the penguins” because of their compulsory uniforms, and the students have mobilized on multiple occasions to try to obtain lower tuition fees, scholarships for the most disadvantaged or more advantageous transport rates .

Their demands have not been heard, or at least not enough, by the successive governments of Michelle Bachelet and Sebastian Pinera. And a new increase in the price of public transport ignited the powder in October 2019. In the wake of the students who took to the streets to denounce these increases, a massive protest movement developed and held for several weeks. It was marked by intense police repression criticized by various human rights organizations.

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One of the main demands of the demonstrators was the adoption of the new Constitution to replace that of 1980, inherited from the dictatorship, a text which weighs heavily on the social and economic functioning of the country by perpetuating many inequalities. And they obtained the organization of a referendum on the change of the Constitution.

“(Sebastian) Pinera ended up accepting this referendum to find a way out and he thus turned against a part of the right which did not want it, in particular José Antonio Kast”, explains Christophe Ventura. This former parliamentarian, a defender of the economic and political work of Pinochet, defends very conservative values, in particular by opposing abortion or same-sex marriage. He had already run in the 2017 presidential election, then obtaining nearly 8% of the vote in the first round.

His result should be much better four years later, some polls even giving him the lead in the first round with a score of around 20%. This follower of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro should in any case greatly exceed the candidate chosen by the right-wing coalition, Sebastian Sichel, a former minister who suffers from the pitiful legacy of the current president. The country, which has suffered badly from the Covid-19 pandemic, is recording poor economic performance. And José Antonio Kast knew how to distance himself from the government by promising the return of growth and the end of delinquency. Without forgetting to advocate a strict control of immigration, an issue that has recently arisen in the public debate with the arrival in Chile of many Haitian and Venezuelan refugees.

Gabriel Boric, a candidate resulting from the student protest

The Christian Democrat Yasna Provoste, candidate for the center-left coalition, suffers the same general mistrust against the traditional political class and she should have great difficulty in reaching the second round of this election. And especially since it has to compete against a formidable rival on its left flank, Gabriel Boric. Coming from the first student protest movements, this young man was elected deputy in 2014 under an independent label and has known how to assert himself, over the years, as the face of a new political class.

Gabriel Boric played a leading role in the campaign for the referendum for a new Constitution which took place on October 25, with an approval rate of over 78%. And he managed to win the primaries of the Apruebo Dignidad coalition, which brings together several extreme left parties, including the Communist Party.

“He certainly knew how to win this primary by being less radical. But it is a very important upheaval in the landscape of the Chilean left. Gabriel Boric knew how to distance himself from the previous generations who were in power,” explains Christophe Ventura . And he is, at only 35 years old, the youngest candidate in this presidential election.

His career and his ideas could lead many abstainers to mobilize, while the voter turnout rate has continued to fall over the ballots in Chile. In the first round of the 2017 presidential election, only 46% of voters went to the polls. This time they are faced with a ballot as uncertain as it is open, which could cause a profound political transformation of the country.