Enrique Gomariz Moraga *

@Latinoamérica21

The changes in the Chilean political situation caused great surprise in the region. The results of the Constitutional Council elections on Sunday 7 May brought headlines highlighting a spectacular turnaround. The Spanish newspaper El País published an editorial entitled “Volantazo en Chile”, the first line of which read: “Sunday’s elections in Chile have turned the political scene upside down.” And the Chilean analyst, Claudio Fuentes, wondered: “How to explain that the progressive wave suddenly turned into a conservative hangover in Chile?”

As often happens, the problem is not in the difficulty of the answer, but in the error on which the question is asked. In Chile, there has been no change in the political scenario, which was already clearly tilted since the defeat in the plebiscite last September, when two-thirds of the electorate rejected the previous constitutional proposal drawn up by the mainly left-leaning Constitutional Council. But, first of all, the starting point of the question is unfounded, because there was no progressive wave with the election of Borić, as was proclaimed at the time.

The victory of the extreme right to write the constitution in Chile is a 180-degree turn on the political board

To better understand the political mirage that then took place, it is necessary to examine two main components. The first one related to the true dimension of the election victory. If only 56 percent of the electorate voted then, and Borić received slightly more than half of those votes, this means that the incumbent had barely 27 percent of the total electorate. But, apart from that, public opinion studies showed that seven out of ten of the nearly three million votes that joined his candidacy in that second round came from other parties (the center left), which Borić will not follow in the future. In other words, Borić’s “broad electoral tide” barely exceeded a fifth of the electorate.

The second element of the mirage alludes to the idea that support for Borić is a direct product of the unstoppable spirit of social upheaval in 2019. Polls have shown that support for what happened in 2019 was much lower than previously thought. Several observers pointed out that the events were “over-celebrated”. In reality, more than half of the Chilean population had a critical attitude towards what happened.

Who is José Antonio Kast, the leader of the radical right-wing party that won the constitutional elections in Chile

Another complementary problem that Borić faced was that he remained in the minority in Congress. A few months later, this led to the rejection of the tax reform, his main project, with which he intended to collect 3.6% of GDP, about 10,000 million dollars, in four years, which would enable him to develop a socioeconomic program. This confirmed that Borić cannot count on the further support of the progressive forces that enabled him to win the presidential elections.

This being so, it is difficult to argue that Chile has experienced a spectacular turn, from a progressive wave to a purely conservative one. In any case, the election accentuated the conservative move, which is also debatable. It is true that Kast’s Republican Party won almost half of the seats in the Council and that its 23 seats, added to the 11 won by the traditional right, leave the configuration of the new Chilean constitution in its hands.

Therefore, interpreting the result as a shift of the Chilean electorate towards the extreme right is quite risky. Such an election result, in fact, can also mean that deep Chile has definitely turned its back on Borić’s government, and it shows this by maximally distancing itself from its political project, which it considers too radical.

We should not forget that in most countries of the region there is a significant gap between the political views of active minorities and those of the deep state. It is a gap that can increase its dimension at certain historical moments. And in this context, everything seems to indicate that Chile is going through one of those moments.

Thus, in the political activities carried out by active minorities, a leftist tendency prevails, as happened in the protests of 2019. However, when it comes to activities where the “deep” of Chile intervenes, as happens when there are mandatory elections, the conservative orientation is clearly visible. prevails. In the case of Chile, the existence of pockets of a citizenry with a very low quality of political culture, resistant to politics, a legacy largely imprinted by the Pinochet experience, has been much studied.

But this conservative orientation of deep Chile should not lead to the conclusion that the majority of the Chilean electorate rejects the promulgation of a democratic constitution that leaves behind the current one designed during the dictatorship. In fact, it would not be surprising if the electorate finally turns to a centrist solution, perhaps even a reduced recovery of Chile’s old political tradition of “three thirds” between right, center and left. (OR)

Enrique Gomáriz Moraga was a FLACSO researcher in Chile and other countries in the region. He was a consultant for international organizations (UNDP, IDRC, IDB). He studied political sociology at the University of Leeds (England) under R. Miliband.