In a recent poll (Pulso Ciudadano), the young Chilean leftist president Gabriel Boric, 36, appears with 51% of disapproval _just under two months in office. The number in itself is not a surprise for a management start that was announced difficult from the beginning.
The Chilean opposition and traditional press, however, already hastily label Boric as a failure. This is the price that the impetuous young Patagonian is paying for having the audacity to displace, through democratic means, an entire political establishment in Santiago from their comfortable positions.
Having said that, however, it is certain that Boric is not having a truce, not even from Congress, in which he does not have a majority, not even from his supposed allies of the communist party, such as leader Daniel Jadue, who until today has not swallowed well having lost the primary. from the left to Boric and has been machine-gunning the president as if his group were not part of the government’s allied base.
Quite rude and resentful of Jadue’s attitude. It is worth remembering that her political group is the closest to the Brazilian PT, while Boric’s group identifies much more with the young leftists of the PSOL.
Boric’s problems began in the first week, with the failed trip of Izkia Siches, his star minister, to the south, to try to start a process of dialogue and pacification. He discovered what was already evident, there are people who make up the Wallmapu conflict who don’t want to talk. Siches was threatened and had to be taken to safety. But it was a first try. And this is a government that will have to learn from its mistakes, if the citizenry is willing to give it at least a truce.
Boric’s main challenge, however, is the economy. And, in this process, it will have to stop being a stone and become a windowpane.
When the previous Congress started to approve partial withdrawals, from 10% to 10% of private pension funds, in the midst of the pandemic emergency, the event was seen as the end of the foundations of Chilean neoliberalism. In a way, it showed the defeat of the pension system _flagship of Boric’s campaign, which wants to replace it with a model in which the State participates more.
The agent, however, is now the government. And he knows that the approval of new withdrawals from what is left of the pension funds will do immense damage to the economy, further increasing an inflation that punishes the poorest (it is already at 9.5%). To the infuriation of the left, the government was against the new retreats, Boric was accused of traitor, even presenting an alternative project, which allowed the withdrawal only for the payment of debts.
This is Boric’s first hard defeat, in addition to the ideological disputes around his figure, which feed the media circus more than they actually count for the country’s destiny. And a dilemma that will continue in the coming months. Presenting a replacement for the Chilean pension system is urgent, as is getting it approved before a Congress that is against the president.
Finance Minister Mario Marcel warned of the dangers of continuing with pension fund withdrawals indefinitely, in a very didactic way: “soon there will be no more funds, and we will only have inflation”.
It is not fair that Boric is evaluated weekly as a president falling from grace, as a strident section of the opposition does. But it is also not certain that the representative has much time to advance his proposals. It’s not just the right that has an eye on his shortcomings, but also the left, which has already labeled him “amarillo” (yellow, an expression used for center-lefts or leftists who “loosen” in their convictions, in a more derogatory).
