Gabriel Boric’s resounding victory in the second round of the Chilean presidential election on December 19, 2021 kept the country on the path of change opened up by the October 2019 social explosion. , and for the future approval in referendum of the new constitution. Above all, it confirmed the transition from popular revolt to the institutional path, translating and at the same time “taming” the strong demands emanating from the streets.
a refounding government
In any case, beyond this institutional “domestication” of the transforming process, Boric presents himself as a future president with a strong reformist agenda, suited to the refounding process inaugurated by the social explosion. The disaster that would represent a victory for José Antonio Kast was buried (perhaps along with the ghost of the dictator Augusto Pinochet), giving way to a government that is projected as a transition between the limited democracy established by the agreed transition (which ended in 2019 ) and the new regime to come.
It is clear that the new government’s strong reform agenda will be partially blocked by the economic-financial crisis to be provoked by the sabotage of the Chilean financial market and elites, as well as the absence of a solid parliamentary majority. Even so, Boric’s victory reinforces the Latin American trend of resumption of left and center-left governments, dehydrating regional versions of authoritarian neoliberal governments – a global trend that here translates mainly into Jair Bolsonaro.
The return of progressivism: back to the past
However, the Boric government will likely differ from other regional experiences, which can be considered a resumption of the “progressive cycle” in a downgraded version. Governments such as those of López Obrador in Mexico, Alberto Fernández in Argentina, and the likely return of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil point to attempts to resume already exhausted projects. Exhausted because they reached the limit of their proposals for changes without rupture, and because in large part they lost their mobilizing capacity. Other governments, such as those of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela and Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua – the first survivor of the original “progressive cycle” in its refounding version, the second from a previous disruptive stage – present themselves as degenerations of themselves, now openly authoritarian.
All of this is taking place in a much worse international situation, in a context of crisis in democracies and a conservative offensive. Taking the Brazilian example: the hope that we openly nurture for a return of Lulism in Brazil does not translate into expectations of structural transformations, but simply of blocking authoritarianism, ignorance, violence and social dismantling carried out by the extreme right-wing government. It is therefore a matter of considerably lowered expectations in relation to the first Lula administrations (which were no longer so high). If before at least reforms and heavy social investments could be expected, now we will have to fight for elections to take place, for them to be clean, for Lula to take office, manage to govern and complete his term.
It is not much. Apparently, an attempt to reinstate the New Republic in a framework in which it no longer exists. Some sense of normalcy in the midst of a process that is far from normal, of endless organic crisis.
Chile is different
As for Boric, much more should be expected. His government will have to behave actively as the beginning of a new era, consolidated by the burial of the Pinochetist Constitution of 1980. Although he has to carry out some practices similar to those of the Concertation of Parties for Democracy (the limited incarnation of the progressive era in the country) to guarantee governance, will govern in dialogue with social movements, with minorities, with youth. It will have to establish a feminine and plural cabinet, recognize the struggles of the Mapuche indigenous in the south of the country, deal humanely with the issue of irregular immigrants, seek memory and justice for the crimes of the military dictatorship and the repression of the social explosion.
There is nothing on the part of the victorious project that resembles “socialism”, “communism” and other phantoms stirred by Kast. However, there is a strong inclusive project, with the expansion of rights for oppressed minorities and expansion of access to health, education and welfare. A project, therefore, markedly to the left – much more than the most leftist version of conservationist governments, the second by Michelle Bachelet. But above all, it is about the institutional translation of a popular revolt, which complements the founding constituent process and supports the subsequent regulation and institutionalization of the profound changes that will be inscribed in the new Charter.
Even more (which is not always considered), it is about a new generation that emerges: the generation of 1968, from the young cadres of Salvador Allende’s government and not so young from the agreed transition. Enter the boys and girls of the 2006 penguin revolution and the 2011 and 2012 student revolt.
Regionally, Boric’s government can also present itself as a novelty – amid lowered resumes in deteriorated contexts of projects from two decades ago. It could become that much-needed and difficult synthesis between institutionality and popular mobilizations. Also between policies to reduce poverty and inequality (traditional leftists) with ecological issues, reproductive rights, indigenous and other minorities. Finally, of strengthening democracy without falling into authoritarian degenerations. It is a tradition: in Chile, the future of the Latin American left is at stake once again.
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