President Boric's government's 2-year-transitional period

From utopian views to pragmatism. Gabriel Boric took the presidential seat in 2022 after two systemic shocks: the social unrest in 2019 and the COVID-19 pandemic. Having attained victory on foundational pleas to tackle disparities, Boric has transited from radical postures to refund the nation to more pragmatic principles in governing the country. In Boric’s own words: “One thing is to be an activist, quite another, to be the nation’s president.” in reply to critical voices on his political ability to adapt “course” to events and evolve from post-social upheaval utopia to pragmatism in political goals. Indeed, President Boric has been skillful in changing and adapting to more pressing needs for governance, and he has also defended his right to change course.  

On the political landscape and the “sentiments” post-constitutional referendums. 

Chilean legislators announced the writing of a new constitution in November 2019 to devise the new "rules of the game" as a way out of the social unrest erupting in October 2019. The upheaval burst out with extreme violence through riots on the streets, looting supermarkets, vandalizing public property, and torching critical infrastructure, such as the metro stations and buildings, and attacks on police deployment and stations. Destructive behavior in the public sphere became a relentless force that seriously threatened the country’s governance and put social peace and the rule of law at risk. Political parties from the left to the right of the spectrum adhered to a political agreement to write a new Magna Carta to diffuse the rage waging on the streets. Elites hoped that a new social pact might allow for the changes needed to improve the quality of life of Chileans. The political agreement was announced by then President Sebastián Piñera in 2019. It sought to quell the anger and suffocate the riots through a political solution to help legislators agree on tackling pressing issues concerning health, pensions, and housing deficits affecting Chileans. During Bachelet’s 2nd term, reforms were negotiated to upgrade services, and probably these reforms, by having attempted to deal with inequality, prevented the anger and impatience of Chileans from exploding. However,  Bachelet’s reforms were negotiated in heated debate and ideological battles, aggravating the political stalemate that had been taking place for years in Congress on reaching accords. At the time of Piñera’s 2nd term in 2018, the path to reform and upgrade the pension system, privatized entirely since the Pinochet era,  and/or the health system had just been cemented, but not as swiftly and robustly as citizens were demanding, which helped to boil citizens’ anger more intensely.

Gabriel Boric, then a member of the Lower Chamber, was among those in Congress willing to support the political way out of chaos and violence in November 2019. Boric did not enjoy the full support of his coalition, the “Frente Amplio” (FA) bloc, on a new Magna Carta to secure governance amidst uncontrolled violence. The FA - ideologically akin to the leftist “Podemos” in Spain-  is a newly formed leftist conglomerate that entered Congress in 2018, thanks to the electoral reform of 2014-2016 under Bachelet’s 2nd administration for fairer political participation. It was meant to break the binomial equilibrium post-Pinochet, namely, the center-right and center-left conglomerates, which had administered power since 1989. Therefore, since Pinochet’s demise, the FA became the third political force to enter the political equilibrium. FA’s contribution to upgrading negotiation still had to be seen.

During the social upheaval, the police had to deal with violent rioters constantly; the Armed Forces were also briefly summoned. The more radical wing of the FA bloc defied police repression to quell the violence and expressed outrage over police behavior. When the agreement for a new Magna Carta was announced, the radical wing of the FA continued defying the status quo and demanded anticipated elections. The FA bloc engaged in foundational talks regarding the new “rules of the game,” even though they had not supported Boric’s participation in the agreement. Still, the FA miscalculated the violence and rage from rioters over services and gaps. The almost 80% approval to ratify the proposal for a new Constitution did not mean that citizens wanted to refund the country, nor did that mean that Chileans would go to any length to change institutions. As scholars had rightly pointed out, Chileans wanted their services to be delivered “efficiently”; their anger outburst was not, in any way, a “carte blanche” to alter the republican institutions. Gabriel Boric’s win into the presidential seat resulted from a heartfelt sentiment for “efficient” change as much as a vote to prevent the conservative and status quo opponent JA Kast from ascending to power. 

During COVID-19, the first referendum on a draft for a new Constitution was held in September 2022. Voters turned out in the wake of many scandals from the majoritarian leftist constituents during debates. Their intolerance to negotiate the rules more broadly with the conservative minority from the center-right and right-wing representatives affected Chileans’ sentiments. It significantly impacted the Chilean psyche despite the promise of a long list of social rights (housing, health, good living, pensions, etc.). The obstinacy in the more radical leftist constituents for a plurinational state, the elimination of the Senate or the possibility that regional representatives might be able to contract foreign debt independently from central government, or the subjection of the Central Bank or the Judiciary to the people’s will through interminable referendums, fuelled a sentiment of “fear” by comparing the country’s standing with the stories of economic mishandling and bankruptcy in neighboring countries that had experimented with similar ideas. Eventually, “fear” buried the last of hopes for a better future amidst a growing feeling that the ongoing constitutional process was not what citizens had wished for. Therefore, the September referendum in 2022 to approve or reject the Constitutional draft, with the vote being compulsory, brought back the hidden voters’ sentiment. This is historically moderate, risk-averse, anti-revolutionary, and with a preference for “mano dura” (a “hard hand” preference to deal with crime and deliver security levels).

The almost 62% rejection vote on the constitutional draft was a politically significant blow to the FA, President Boric, and his coalition, who did not expect or could not believe that the same citizens who had gone to the polls to ratify the political way out of chaos through a new Constitution had rejected their draft. By losing their bet on the Constitution, Boric’s government adjusted course and became better pragmatism and political survival students. They shifted the narrative against the status quo and focused on governing the country. By September 2022, citizens were increasingly demanding security on the streets and effective control of crime and immigration flows, connected with a surge in crime and violent criminal gangs.

President Boric decided to go for a Cabinet reshuffle and replaced his inner circle with the more politically experimented ex-Concertación figures to tackle crime, gather intelligence, and strengthen security post-referendum 2022. The cabinet reshuffle meant a more realistic approach to policymaking amidst a painful maturity process for Boric and the FA. Boric had to discard his closest allies and join forces with the ex-Concertacion. Political talent in the ex-Concertación replaced the most utopian views in the FA. Ex-Interior Minister Ms. Siches left Cabinet, and ex-Concertacion Mrs. Toha, a more experienced politician from ex-President Lagos’ PPD party, entered the scene. This was a significant turn in Boric’s learning process because the FA had based its emotional appeal on angered citizens by heavily criticizing the years of the Concertacion government after Pinochet’s demise in 1989. In their view, the ex-governing Concertation’s transitional cycle had not brought the long-cherished prosperity that Chileans demanded, nor had transitional governments made more to solve inequality; therefore, FA put the center-left conglomerate in the dock in their contestation campaign against the status quo; nonetheless, in the wake of the referendum defeat, President Boric called the ex-Concertacion forces to steer the course to attain governance, despite having criticized the transitional coalition for their shortcomings or omission. 

President Boric also reaffirmed the country’s traditional economics-centered Foreign Policy, as it has been upheld since Pinochet’s demise, by reshuffling his Cabinet one more time and by naming ex-Concertación A. Von Klaveren as the new Foreign Relations Minister. Von Klaveren aligned the FA coalition forces to support the EU-Chile Association Agreement dating from 2003 and the CPTPP. EU-Chile Accord’s modernization talks had commenced during Bachelet’s 2nd term. These continued under ex-president Piñera’s administration. However, some in Boric’s Foreign Policy advisory team had attempted to review the negotiations reached so far through an ideologically revisionist posture by declaring the country needed to review the Association Treaty. This drew criticism from either side of the political spectrum, given the apparent anti-TPP influence on the advisory team. This posture also delayed the ratification of the TPP-11, which Chile had pioneered with its signature in 2016 in Auckland, N.Z., and by hosting a summit with TPP members in Viña del Mar in 2018, once ex-President Trump announced the USA’s withdrawal from the mega trade treaty. This revisionist stance attempted to introduce side letters regarding the dispute resolution chapter in the TPP-11, today known as the CPTPP. While delaying ratification, the side letters came to no avail, as no party in the TPP-11 was willing to sign except for New Zealand. By March 2023, von Klaveren entered the Cabinet, reaffirming Chile’s traditional approach to global markets and commerce for the country’s benefit.

Any Revolution has a Counter-Revolution.  

President Boric detached himself from Congress debates on having or not a 2nd attempt at a Magna Carta. Congress concluded a 2nd attempt was still needed, but it would differ from the first. There was an Expert Panel whose members were appointed by the political parties represented in Congress. These were high-caliber academics, experts, and constitutionalists who devised a proposal to be submitted to the Constituent Council (50 members), which the citizens elected on May 7th, 2023. By then, citizens were growing tired of the Constitutional narrative as an excuse to reform or not reform health and pensions and bring housing solutions. Because crime dominated Chileans’ debates and recollections of a failed process were still fresh on the Chileans’ minds, citizens favored a right-wing or conservative surge in the new Constituent Congress with figures more akin to ex-presidential candidate Kast’s party “Republicans.” They surged in the wake of crime just as leftist and radicalized independents did in the wake of the social unrest in the first process. Yet they repeated the same mistakes that the first Constituents had made: obstinacy in identity politics through extreme conservatism and levels of intolerance to incorporate different views from the left minority. They refused to negotiate more broadly with the center-left minority in the Constituent Council; therefore, they produced a second draft that diverted from the integrity of the proposal made by the Expert Panel. Thus, “Republicans” failed Chileans similarly to the way the extreme left did in the first process. And Chileans rejected it again in December 2023, producing another tectonic blow, this time to the conservatives romanticizing the old status quo.

What is happening with reforms in the wake of constitutional defeat? 

Politicians no longer face constitutional distractors or excuses after December 2023, and debates on pensions and health have started with all citizens’ eyes on them. Whether they reach port is entirely up to their learning process in the wake of ideological battles in constitutional experiments. Failing to produce reforms during Boric’s presidency does not bode well for governance and traditional politics because micro pressures have not disappeared. They remain despite COVID-19’s effects on the population and the widespread concerns over crime. The underlying factors leading to the upheaval remain while pensions, health, and housing continue to be debated, and the efficiency of the accords remains elusive. However, the health accord among legislators is a sample of Boric’s political flexibility to reach a consensus and hails his pragmatism to avoid a significant collapse of the private health system. After two systemic shocks, the resilience of institutions has been put to the test in Chile. Still, adding to the micro-pressures (citizens’ demands for better services), organized crime and illegal flows associated with illicit activities may produce a different type of revolt in the population if the stalemate on reforms continues in Congress. Frustration may bring an authoritarian leader promising a hard hand on criminals, an outsider to political circuits,  who might be more of an authoritarian populist than a leftist utopian. Reforms are essential for inoculating against the germ of populism and authoritarian phantoms looming in the dark. Specialists have warned of the fragmentation and polarization of ideas among political representatives. Reforming the entry and formation of parties to avoid misrepresentation or the issue of independent leaders benefiting from a political party but acting without discipline harms the quality of the political debate. At least there is recognition that political system reform is needed, a fundamental aspect of securing the political system’s governance. The ball is in their court. 

Soledad Soza. Ph.D. (c). MSc Political Science.