Chile Could Move Further to the Left as Well

[Charles Brown <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Reviva, Allendismo !

THE AMERICAS

Chile Could Move Further to the Left as Well
By JAMES R. WHELAN
WSJ
December 9, 2005; Page A15

SANTIAGO, Chile -- This is the most successful country in Latin
America, politically, economically and socially. But you would never
know that listening to the four candidates vying in the Dec. 11
elections to become its next president. They mainly have campaigned
against the free-market model which made Chile the success story it
is.

The problem is, as Hermógenes Perez de Arce, the country's best-read
classical-liberal columnist put it recently, "the right in Chile is
clinically dead." The only question is how far from the
wealth-producing ideals of limited government and the rule of law
will the next president stray.

The front-runner is Michelle Bachelet, a 54-year-old pediatrician
with a past as an implacable opponent of the military government that
rescued Chile from the chaos created by the elders of her
then-violence-prone Socialist Party. 

( "the military government that
rescued Chile from the chaos created by the elders of her
then-violence-prone Socialist Party. " Yea , right. That's a real whopper .
-CB)


Her leading challenger is a rambunctious billionaire businessman
named Sebastián Piñera, who has few ideological anchors. As Mr. Perez de
Arce commented, "he is not one of us, and he never has been one of us." Mr.
Piñera, though he heads a nominally rightist party,
describes himself as a centrist.

Joaquin Lavín, who came within a whisker in 1999 of defeating the
moderate Socialist Ricardo Lagos, is running third in the polls. 
In this campaign the Chicago-trained economist has abandoned his
commitment to the free market he once championed, going so far as to
attack key elements of the privatized pension system. 

( Sounds like the jig is up. The Chicago trained guy _in Chile_ is attacking
privatization ! Symbolically , isn't that the beginning of the end of
Neo-liberalism ? Looks like the right has gone left. We can put an X over
Pinochet's face on the front of David Harvey's book.  -CB) 

He had the
center-right field all to himself until May 14 when Mr. Piñera
strong-armed his party leadership into violating their pact with 
Mr. Lavín's party, and was able to insert himself as a candidate.

The fourth candidate, Tomás Hirsch, heads a small,
Communist-dominated coalition called "Together We Can." Since he
hovers around 7% in the polls and has nothing to lose, Mr. Hirsch 
has been able to run the most flamboyant campaign.

The ultimate winner most probably won't be known until the Jan. 15
run-off elections, inasmuch as none of the four stands much of a
chance on Dec. 11 of polling the absolute majority needed to win in
the first round.

If, as it now appears, Ms. Bachelet prevails in January, the big
question is whether she would govern as the moderate Socialist she
purports to be, or as the hard-line leftist she was for so long. As
has been widely noted in the Chilean press, she was on good terms
with armed revolutionaries most of the 33 years she has belonged to
the Socialist Party. Many of her most influential advisers come out
of the radical wing of that party. To compound the puzzle, Ms.
Bachelet herself, a newcomer to electoral politics, has evaded clear
and decisive policy definitions. Her service in the Lagos cabinet as
health minister and later defense minister was forgettable.

If she does win, will she continue Chile's free-market orientation?
Or, will her leftist inclinations lead her to throw in with Latin
America's anti-business, anti-U.S. coalition, which Argentine
President Nestor Kirchner and Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da
Silva spoke of as a leftist wave of the future at their Nov. 30
meeting? That grouping includes Fidel Castro, Venezuela's bombastic,
U.S.-baiting Hugo Chávez, Uruguay's President Tabaré Vázquez and, if
he is elected later this month, the Bolivian radical (and champion of the
cocaine growers) Evo Morales. If this should happen, it would be time to bid
adios to the 10-year imperium of free-market, pro-Western ideas in South
America.

:>) - CB

Hernán Felipe Errázuriz, a former president of Chile's Central Bank,
ambassador to the U.S., and foreign minister, expresses the concerns
of many on the right. "How will Michelle Bachelet navigate in these
perilous international waters? ( Whence the peril ? Terrorism from Uncle
Gringo ? -CB) It is a mystery. Clearly, she does not display the stuff of
her predecessors, ( I think she's got something better than "stuff"- CB) nor
has she illuminated the path she would follow. In her foreign policy
platform, there is only eloquent silence about Castro, Chávez and the war on
terrorism."

In fact, Ms. Bachelet has been more than simply silent on Castro. She has
been a consistent apologist for him -- but, then, Mr. Lavín has been soft on
Castro, too ( The Chicago guy is soft on communism ? The South American
revolution may be more advanced than I thought - CB) And, she has said she
favors shifting the emphasis of Chilean foreign policy away from the U.S.
and toward Latin America.

Finally: Might history repeat itself if there is a second round this
time? In the last presidential elections, in 1999, the tiny (3%)
Communist Party fielded its own candidate, vowing that should there
be a second round, it would refuse to support the candidate of the
center-left "Concertación," which has governed Chile since Gen.
Augusto Pinochet relinquished power in 1990. But in that second
round, the Communists did throw their support to the Concertación
candidate, the Socialist Mr. Lagos, enabling him to carve out a slim
victory over Mr. Lavín.

Mr. Hirsch, like the Communist candidate Gladys Marin in 1999, says
now that his followers will vote void ballots in a run-off. Time will tell.
But the aftermath of the 1999 elections might be instructive: The Lagos
government rammed through 

( of course , according to the Mouthpiece of Imperialism, nothing
pro-working class can be democratic, even in an elected legislature- CB)

 Congress a far-reaching labor law which the Communist-dominated labor
federation wanted.   Critics say that was the quid pro quo for their support
in the runoff. So far the labor "reform" is the only significant retreat
from the free-market
model that the three Concertación governments inherited from the
Pinochet government.

The bulk of congressional seats are also up for grabs on Dec. 11. The
opposition has had sufficient seats in Congress (18 of 38 elective Senate
seats, 54 of 120 Chamber of Deputies seats) to block major legislation,
doubtlessly curbing some of Mr. Lagos's socialist
exuberance. The present guessing is that the opposition is now likely to
lose seats in both chambers.

Chile is not only the most successful country in Latin America, it is also,
in many ways, the one that carries the most hope for economic progress. What
happens here next Sunday really does matter.

Mr. Whelan is the author of "Out of the Ashes," a history of Chile
from 1833-1988 and a former visiting professor at the University of
Chile's Institute of Political Science. He lives in Santiago.
================================================================

Bachelet Wins First Round in Chile

Santiago de Chile, Dec 12 (Prensa Latina) Government candidate
Michelle Bachelet easily won the elections in Chile, but without the
majority required, so she will face a January runoff, confirmed the
official report Monday.

The ex minister of Defense won 45.95 percent of the votes and will
face multimillionaire businessman Sebastian Piñera, from the
rightwing National Renewal (RN), who came in second with 25.41
percent after 99.32 percent of the valid votes were counted.

According to the information released by Home Under Secretary Jorge
Correa, the favorite of the Independent Democratic Union (UDI),
Joaquin Lavin, obtained 23.22 and progressive Tomas Hirsh, from the
Joint Podemos Mas, received 5.4 percent.

Meanwhile, the January adversaries for the runoff wished each other
luck.

"I wish you the best, not so much naturally" said Piñera as a joke in a
simultaneous broadcast with Bachelet on Chilean National TV.

The 54 year old socialist physician reiterated her invitation to
Piñera to attend a dinner in La Moneda when she is inaugurated on
March 11.

Bachelet, ex minister of health and defense is the daughter of Air
Force general (Alberto) who died from torture received for opposing
the military Dictator Augusto Pinochet. ( The military and democracy , in
Latin America - CB)

Piñera is one of the wealthiest men in Chile, with capital estimated
at over 1.4 billion dollars. He made his fortune from the
privatization of state enterprises during the military regime of the
80s.

hr/ccs/abo/ apr

Chilean Candidate Rejects Support Bachelet

Santiago, Chile, Dec 12 (Prensa Latina) Tomas Hirsch, candidate of
"Junto Podemos Mas" coalition, rejected this Monday any political
arrangement with governing party Michelle Bachelet and right-wing
candidate Sebastian Piñera during the second electoral round in
Chile.

The leader of Humanist Party said this coalition is "the country's
only alternative to represent ambitions of the poor and mistreated,"
which according to the unfair neoliberal economic model, are the
majority.

The position of "Juntos Podemos Mas" put the governing party
candidate and the government's coalition in a precarious situation in this
second electoral round, where Bachelet got 45.87 percent of
votes, Piñera 25.48 and Lavin 23.25.

The humanist leader stated he will continue working in this project
with the same force he has done so far and the conviction that sooner or
later we will reach the government to eliminate abuses and
injustices.

Hirsch is happy with Sunday elections' results, highlighting the
participation of over 400,000 women and men and Chilean youth in
these polls.