Chile tests its young leader. Can he be a model for Latin America?
-
Howard LaFranchi Staff writer
| Santiago, Chile
Chile’s bearded and tattooed young president, a former student activist named Gabriel Boric, rode into office in March on the crest of landslide elections that seemed to confirm Chileans’ hunger for change. His election followed a strong “yes” vote in an October 2020 referendum on whether to replace the military dictatorship-era constitution.
But sky-high expectations and impatience for deep and rapid change from one side of Chile’s political spectrum are only half of Mr. Boric’s problem. On the other side he faces a skeptical conservative population, from business elites to middle-class families, shaken by the prospect of significant economic and social change imposed by the left.
Why We Wrote This
Leading from the middle sounds like good politics. But in a deeply divided society, every accommodation can feel like a betrayal – a big reason Chile’s new leftist president is plummeting in the polls.
That split leaves the youthful Mr. Boric walking a perilous tightrope, one reason for what is seen as the steepest plunge in popularity by a new president in modern Chilean politics.
“Boric represents the yearnings for a new, younger, more inclusive, and widely representative Chile,” says Juan Cristóbal Cantuarias, a young lawyer who counts himself among “realists on the left.”
“Boric is profoundly socialist,” he says, “but he also recognizes that not all Chileans agree with that, so he’s governing from a more pragmatic position that won’t force fast changes the country may not be ready for.”
The distinctive performance by the feminist group Matriadanzante (Dancing Motherland) draws an enthusiastic crowd on the main boulevard of the Chilean capital’s historical center.
As they sing and twirl in their bright red skirts and black shirts, each young woman has a small child strapped to her chest.
“I’m raising children, not on vacation,” some chant as they dance, followed by “Motherhood is a 24-hour job!” from others. A hand-lettered sign delivers their political message: “Sustaining life is a collective duty.”
Why We Wrote This
Leading from the middle sounds like good politics. But in a deeply divided society, every accommodation can feel like a betrayal – a big reason Chile’s new leftist president is plummeting in the polls.
Maybe it’s the ensemble’s with-it Frida Kahlo look, or the progressive overtones of the group’s messaging. But the young mothers certainly sound like they would be supporters of Chile’s new young president, the former student activist Gabriel Boric, who took office March 11.
And indeed, it seems they are – even as some express the same mix of expectation and impatience shared by other supporters of Mr. Boric in his first weeks on the job.
“Boric is a symbol of fresh energy who wants to renew our politics and move our social conditions forward, and that is something our country needs,” says Vernisse Nielsen, a mother of two sporting her group’s signature multicolored headband.
“But we know he faces threats from the ultra-right just as we who support a feminist motherhood do,” she adds. “So while we remain hopeful, we also plan to keep dancing in the streets, to remind Boric we are here and what people expect of him.”
Regional battle for the left
For the bearded and tattooed Mr. Boric – at 36, the country’s youngest president ever – the sky-high expectations for deep and rapid change from one side of Chile’s political spectrum are only half his problem.
On the other side he faces a skeptical conservative population, stretching from the country’s business elites to many middle-class families, that is shaken by the prospect of significant economic and social change imposed by the left.
That split leaves the youthful Mr. Boric walking a perilous tightrope, balancing between sustaining the hopes that propelled him into office and tamping down expectations – and fears – of quick and revolutionary change, some political analysts say. The high-wire act is one reason for what is being described as the steepest plunge in popularity by a new president in modern Chilean politics.
Moreover, the precipitous fall has also dimmed a star that just weeks ago was heralded as the model of a new Latin American left – one that could meet the pent-up aspirations of a struggling working class and activist youth without slipping into authoritarianism, as has occurred in Venezuela and Nicaragua.
With more Latin America countries – including Argentina, Peru, and Honduras – turning in recent years to leftist leadership, some experts say a regional battle for a dominant left-wing vision looms.
Indeed, if leftist presidential candidates win in democratic elections this year in Brazil and Colombia, one likely result will be a decadelong struggle for preeminence between solidly democratic left-wing governments and “the more authoritarian-aligned [leftist] actors” in the region, says Evan Ellis, Latin America research professor at the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
Plummeting support
But these days in Chile, the talk is less of the country as a model for regional leftist governance and more of a quick presidential fall from grace.
The country’s political divide, plus what some say were the inevitable mistakes of an untested leader with inexperienced advisers, also explains Mr. Boric’s short presidential honeymoon. Three different opinion polls taken in April show support plummeting and disapproval shooting up by 30 percentage points.
“What these recent polls tell me is that a lot of the Boric voters from the [December] elections were not so much Boric supporters but were rather voting against the very right-wing alternative,” says Andrés Rebolledo, dean of business and economics at Santiago’s SEK University and a former government official in international economics.
“This large group of voters has no loyalty to Boric or to his policy goals,” he adds, “so they have been quick to disapprove as mistakes were made or as policies that weren’t even necessarily his were discussed and played prominently in the media.”
Mr. Boric rode into office in March on the crest of landslide December elections that seemed to confirm Chileans’ hunger for change. After all, the election of a young progressive president followed the strong “yes” vote in an October 2020 referendum on whether to replace the military dictatorship-era constitution.
That “yes” to a constituent assembly to write a new constitution followed the October 2019 social uprising that brought Santiago and other major cities to a halt and revealed a youth population tired of standing on the outside of Chile’s vaunted economic prosperity.
Indeed, for decades after the end of the military dictatorship in 1990, Chile was consistently among the region’s top economic performers and a model of political stability, with political parties of the moderate right and left working together toward sustained prosperity.
But Chile’s free-market economic model, which was heavily dependent on international trade – and guided by a constitution favoring the interests of the economic elites – also resulted in one of the least equitable societies of Latin America.
Boric’s challenge: to govern
The uprising of 2019, the vote for a new constitution, and Mr. Boric’s election were all signs of deep dissatisfaction with the status quo, analysts say. But now some supporters of the idea of change are souring on the new president as he learns the ropes of governing, they add.
Mr. Boric’s rising unpopularity is also dragging down support for the new constitution, which is to be voted on in another referendum in September.
Some Chileans who didn’t support Mr. Boric in the election say he only has himself to blame for his plummeting popularity.
“I think of what [former President Sebastián] Piñera said recently, that it’s one thing to criticize and to offer beautiful ideas, but it’s something else to govern,” says Ignacia López, a public relations specialist with a Santiago energy company. “Boric showed his inexperience and scared some people with some extreme appointments to high-level positions.”
Indeed, eyebrows rose across Santiago’s largely right wing-dominated media and among corporate elites when Mr. Boric named Maya Fernández Allende – granddaughter of former socialist President Salvador Allende, ousted from power (and killed) in the 1973 military coup – as his defense minister.
On the other hand, Mr. Boric’s leftist partners in his governing coalition, including the Communist Party, howled disapproval and publicly questioned the new president’s commitment to undoing the country’s neoliberal economic model when he named the widely respected former central bank chief Mario Marcel as finance minister.
Now a president who encountered adoring throngs as a candidate must count on hecklers (and even the stray rock thrower) at public events.
Core of support
But for the most part Mr. Boric’s left-wing supporters are sticking with him. At this year’s May Day march in central Santiago, no one in the mix of labor unions, youth organizations, environmental activists, and progressive groups like Dancing Motherland appeared to have turned hard against their bearded president.
“Boric represents the yearnings for a new, younger, more inclusive, and widely representative Chile, but it’s not something everybody wants and so of course there will be difficulties along the way,” says Juan Cristóbal Cantuarias, a young lawyer who recently took a job in the city of Santiago’s law department.
“Boric is profoundly socialist, but he also recognizes that not all Chileans agree with that, so he’s governing from a more pragmatic position that won’t force fast changes the country may not be ready for,” says Mr. Cantuarias, who counts himself among the “realists on the left” who understand that significant change can’t happen overnight.
Even a group of university students representing Chile’s young Communists appeared to be unanimous in their support for Mr. Boric.
“It’s not news that Boric is not a Communist, but he is for workers, he is for social justice, he represents the first opportunity in decades for change that will benefit the working class – so of course we support him,” says Sofia, a social work major in Santiago who asked to use only her first name.
Some Chileans who are standing by Mr. Boric say they have their eye on the bigger prize of a new constitution, which they say will be the real measure of a more inclusive nation distributing opportunities and well-being more broadly.
“Presidents come and go, but a new constitution will define our path forward for decades to come,” says Andrés Velásquez, a finance director for a small Santiago construction company who voted for the Communist candidate in the first round of presidential voting.
“Now that he’s in office I see Boric governing from the center-left, but his priorities are 100% in social issues like education, public health, and decent retirements, and of course the new constitution,” Mr. Velásquez says.
“Boric is facing pressures from the extremes on the right and the left on the constitution, but he understands the importance of delivering a document that includes all Chilean people and is more equitable than what it replaces,” he adds. “I think that’s something a majority of Chileans will support.”
