Without successors

Chileans have learned to change the political regime without breaking the law

In Chile, for the first time in half a century, a president representing the right-wing conservatives came to power in elections. He was supported by the same forces that were behind the dictator Augusto Pinochet, who by force held power in the country for 17 long years. Does it mean...

In Chile, for the first time in half a century, a president representing the right-wing conservatives came to power in elections.

He was supported by the same forces that were behind the dictator Augusto Pinochet, who by force held power in the country for 17 long years. Does this mean that Chile has rushed into the past? Did she remember her firm hand, her “effective manager”, whom she once branded and brought to justice?

The eminent Latin American journalist and political scientist Alvaro Vargas Llosa claims that the opposite is happening - the country is moving forward. In Spain, he says, the real victory of democracy came only when the dictator Franco's heirs won fair, free elections for the first time.

Chile is showing the same phenomenon.

The first stage of "cleansing" in this country began in 1990, when a coalition of center-left parties defeated the protege of Pinochet in the elections. But then the Chilean socialists broke with the legacy of not only the military dictatorship, but also their "blood brothers." They once and for all abandoned attempts to nationalize the Chilean banks, create a "people's militia" and replace the legal system with "socialist legality."

A coalition of left-wing and center-left parties, including communists, returned the country to the law, fair courts, political institutions, and trust in private business. The Chilean left proved that freedom is better than lack of freedom and founded a model of state, unique in Latin America, based on a powerful national consensus.

Since the mid-1990s, the world has been talking about the Chilean economic miracle. Chile topped the list of countries with the highest standard of living in Latin America, the best education and health care, the freest media, and the lowest level of corruption. Nevertheless, by the end of the 2000s, the Chilean left began to lose the support of voters. The left lost its "drive", lost its bearings, began to make one mistake after another in the economy. And although Chile still looks very dignified in the conditions of the economic crisis, the passivity of the coalition has become obvious. So, according to Alvaro Vargas Llosa, "behave those who believe that they will rule forever."

With regard to Chile, we are not talking about personalities. First, the current president, Michelle Bachelet, whose term ends in March of this year, still has a very high approval rating. Secondly, the country's constitution prohibits her from being re-elected.

We are talking about a political regime of a certain orientation. And this mode was replaced - easily and painlessly. The Chilean miracle, perhaps, is also that the transition of power from the left to the right took place without street fights, without accusations of large-scale vote-rigging and theft of 3 or 4 percent of the votes.

In the 2006 elections, the current victor Sebastian Piñera lost in the second round to Bachelet. Now he has defeated the candidate of the ruling coalition, Eduardo Frey.

In the last decade, it has become fashionable to talk about a kind of “left turn” in Latin America. However, the elections of recent months suggest that the continent has most likely headed in a diametrically opposite direction. Sebastian Piñera's rise to power in Chile followed the victory of right-wing candidate Ricardo Martinelli in Panama.

As for the bastion of the left, Venezuela, the latest actions of Hugo Chavez, who devalued the national currency, closed foreign-owned supermarkets, and brought troops to the streets to suppress protests, raise the question not so much about the adequacy of his regime, but about the political longevity of the former putschist paratrooper.

“In none of the countries ruled by those who are trying to make their rule indefinite: Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, there is not even a semblance of national unity,” says Argentine journalist and politician Gabriel Salvia. “The society in them is split, the victory of the leaders was achieved at the expense of administrative resources, and sometimes at the expense of outright forgery.”

New Chilean President Sebastian Piñera, whose victory could seriously weaken the influence of Chavez and his associates on the continent, meanwhile does not intend to change the economic strategy of Chile, not to mention the political system. In the past, one of his brothers was a minister in the Pinochet government, and some of the current assistants collaborated with the dictatorial regime. But Piñera himself, in a referendum in 1988, said no to the extension of the powers of Augusto Pinochet.