Polarization, rearrangements and the tasks for today
By Movimiento Anticapitalista
On Sunday 21N the presidential, parliamentary and regional councilors elections took place, expressing the social polarization and the new rearrangements of the regime, not exempt of crises and limits. The far-right Kast led the first majority and went to the second round together with Gabriel Boric of the FA-PC conglomerate. We share our view of the electoral development that unfolded two years after the rebellion, with a constituent process underway and a deepening of the economic crisis.
A polarized and rearranged election
With 27.91%, the candidate of the Social Christian Front, José Antonio Kast, overcame Gabriel Boric of Apruebo Dignidad who obtained 25.83%, only 2.08% of distance between them, transforming this election into the closest in 20 years. Another fact that expresses the political change the country is going through is that for the first time, after the end of the dictatorship, the first three places were obtained by referents outside the traditional parties of the last 30 years.
The political center represented by the former Concertación (now called New Social Pact) suffered a significant setback at the parliamentary level, while the presidential candidate, the DC Yasna Provoste, came in fifth with 11.61%, being one of the sectors most affected by the polarization and the search outside the old apparatus.
In this sense, the government coalition that presented itself under the name of Chile Podemos Más manifested the debacle of the post-dictatorship right wing, falling back a strong crisis prior to the election that crumbled the presidential letter of Sebastián Sichel, even he himself left his sector in freedom of action to face the elections, among other things for being the face of Piñera’s “continuity”, while his political business connections caused clashes in the polls and on the other hand due to the emergence of the far-right candidate Kast, who pushed the last piece to disarticulate the ruling right in crisis. Sebastián Sichel with only 12.79% was relegated to fourth place, although in the parliamentary elections they won in the senatorial elections they lost emblematic “faces” of the position and did not achieve a majority.
Classified as a “surprise”, the third place went to the far-liberal businessman Franco Parisi, who with an anti-political discourse and based on individual entrepreneurship managed with a strong social network campaign to win with 12.80%. Parisi, who from the USA and without setting foot in the country, since he owes alimony, fears legal consequences in a possible return to Chile. His candidacy turned out to be the “outsider” novelty of the elections, constituting a phenomenon of voters looking for other options in the midst of the disintegration of the traditional party system.
Further behind was Marco Enríquez Ominami in his fourth presidential candidacy with 7.61% and in last place was Eduardo Artés, a declared Stalinist who defends the Chinese model and North Korea with only 1.47%, expressing that his discourse failed to connect with a leftist sector, nor with the spirit of revolt beyond the polarization of the first two places.
The parliamentary outlook marked the positive fact of the entry of Fabiola Campillai as a symbol of the rebellion, worker and victim of state violence during the outburst, who ran independently and achieved the first majority in the Metropolitan Region. To this good election, we must add the important votes of social fighters who, through Dignidad Ahora, presented themselves, even though by electoral system they will not enter Congress, as in the case of Matías Toledo in the 12th district.
The Communist Party won two senators, after 50 years managed to enter again the upper chamber and won 11 seats in the Representatives Chamber, increasing, as well as the Frente Amplio, its seats. The People’s Party (Parisi) won 6 seats in the Representatives Chamber. No future government will have a majority in Congress.
The far-right, Boric and social symptoms
The dialogues and debates after November 21 generate an important concern about the advance of Kast, taken advantage of by the lesser-evil practice of boosting a figure without seeing the more global panorama that starts by placing the elections within the symptom of social polarization as denominator of the situation, a fact that tends to annul the political center and points to pole tendencies, being Kast who cultivated a discourse against a false enemy that destabilizes the country, targeting migration and the Mapuche conflict as driving forces of the social consequences derived from the economic crisis. Likewise, he pointed to his main opponent as a supposed “communist” who defends drug trafficking, once again, aiming to polarize in order to connect with a generalized feeling of uncertainty in the midst of precariousness.
On the other hand, Gabriel Boric of Apruebo Dignidad (FA-PC), was becoming a manager of the “stability of the capital” after the rebellion, therefore, promoting a program that takes certain demands, although adapting them according to the governability of a regime in crisis, straying away from the impulses of the outburst and shaping a language of changes as far as possible. This drift, even though the opponent calls him “communist”, has been distancing him from the popular and rural sectors of the country. The results show that in the big cities he achieved a relative majority, while in places where problems such as migration are cultivated, he was relegated to third place, in the case of the north of Chile. Analysts of his own sector make a balance that Boric’s speech sought the middle sectors and the voter of the political center, a fact that diminished his public performance in the last stage, since he was not in tune with the economic problems that the country is facing today. A central problem is that after the elections he ratified this path, amplifying a criticism to the more “left” sectors, as well as activating definitions on migration, drug trafficking and violence, an attempt to take charge of Kast’s right-wing narrative and go after the disenchanted who opted for Parisi, that is, instead of facing the ultra-right from the left, for now he has ended up further agreeing his discourse in order to win the center electorate.
The electoral dynamics, the social polarization and the disintegration of the traditional parties is a precedent in the emergence of the far-right Kast, who, in turn, will have to generate a new consensus in the right wing in crisis facing the internal disputes to command the bloc and, in addition, adds the problem of carrying out his anti-women, anti-LGBTIQ+ and anti-worker program in a context of global crisis of capital and after the experience of the street struggle of October 18, 2019 and the immense feminist wave that is sweeping the country. That is to say, his possible government of austerity and repression will encounter resistance, his counterparts in the world like Bolsonaro or Trump have already demonstrated their limits, the role of the left will be central to define his course.
The electoral map is not exhausted in Kast, one example is that a working woman and fighter against the impunity of Piñera’s criminal government, like Fabiola Campillai, entered the Senate with the first majority, while other left-wing spaces had an outstanding participation. This fact is important in the analysis and in what is to come, the main task, together with defeating the far-right, is to build a left and anti-capitalist political alternative so that the reserves of the explosion are not diluted and do not end up in free space for the proto-fascist variants.
An assessment of recent history is the liquidationist role of the People’s List, the incipient space that emerged as a reference of the revolt and that due to its non-partisan and depoliticized logics of a bureaucratic group destroyed the possibility of continuing with the political expression of elections such as the one for the Constitutional Convention, where the right wing suffered a hard blow and new voices entered to challenge in an independent way. Without equalizing and with the pertinent distance, the irruption of Parisi and the People’s Party managed in a distorted way to channel the anti-political caste sentiment that is widely spread in the country.
The course of the outburst, constitutional change and the old and new leaderships
The successful economic and social model spread by the Latin American bourgeoisie on the Chilean neoliberal capitalism was implemented from the historical defeat against the working class product of the Pinochet dictatorship and later consolidated with the transition to the democracy agreed, constituting a strong two-party political regime and a protected democracy that managed the complete commodification of the reproduction of life. That structure exploded on October 18, 2019 under the slogan “it’s not 30 pesos, it’s 30 years” to decipher in the eyes of the masses economic and political problems and likewise, to point to the representatives of the years of democracy as the responsible ones. The two central slogans were the out Piñera and a new constitution to dismantle the legacy of Pinochet, i.e., problematizing power and instilling needs for structural transformations.
The process shared the continental tonic and that of the social outbursts of late 2019, while Chile marked a superior characteristic due to the stability of the political and economic regime as a result of the total liberalization of the model supported by a repressive control, this qualitative leap at local level, at country level, meant a change of stage that opened a pre-revolutionary moment, definition based on the fact that objectively anti-capitalist content was raised, although the absence of a revolutionary leadership with mass weight was its main weakness that did not allow a greater development, although it left us in better conditions for the development of the subjective factor, the party.
The power of the streets was a clear sign of massiveness, radicalism and self-organization, although it also expressed the weakness of the left and of the working class as an organized subject, the main fact that contributed in a negative way to make possible the agreed solution to the crisis (even with many contradictions) and to safeguard the governability of a worn-out capital and of a model with survival. The reformist sectors such as the PC, which lead the main trade union central of the country, the CUT, contributed to disarticulate the continuity of the strike, while the Frente Amplio directly adhered to the Agreement for Peace and the New Constitution to save Piñera, to guarantee impunity for human rights violations (hundreds of mutilated people, dozens of deaths, political imprisonment up to this day and sexual and political violence at the hands of the repressive apparatus), and to regulate the constitutional change in narrow margins (respect to the constituted power and regulation based on supra-majority quorum to grant the veto weight to the right-wing minority). With this demonstration, the FA tries to position itself as a replacement for the bourgeoisie. The described dynamics is what constitutes the central axis of the regime’s reconfiguration policy in the country, while a high social polarization is at work and the economic crisis is exacerbated after the arrival of the pandemic, at the same time that the extensive scenario of political crises in the main conglomerates that governed “the 30 years” after the dictatorship cannot be closed, the post-election political map shows the problems that the regime continues to face and the limits of the reordering.
The Agreement for Peace and the New Constitution was an attempt by the regime to try to channel the rebellion through institutional channels and thus take charge of the demand for constitutional change. At the same time, the electoral calendar itself associated with the process expressed the magnitude of the new stage: the vote for the “yes to a new constitution” with 80% approval and mobilization support and later with the irruption of the independent phenomenon and the anti-capitalist left in the elections for the Constitutional Convention as milestones that deepened the political crisis.
After the elections for the CC we wrote: “If the blow to the right wing and the ex-concertación[ii] are the most outstanding expressions “for the negative” of the election, the irruption of a large number of independent constituents is undoubtedly the expression “for the positive”, adding to this point the important vote for women candidates driven by the powerful feminist tide, which implied that the “gender correction” was applied in favor of men, a true contradiction”[iii].
Without a real counterweight in the structure of the working class and without an organism to counterbalance the internal pressures of the bourgeois institutionality, the independent spectrum was diluted and this helped the Frente Amplio to emerge as the main actor in the Constitutional Convention, acting as a transversal axis between the old concertación and the minority of the right, thus articulating itself as the new leadership capable of containing the mood for change in order to prevail the current interests of the political regime.
The FA became the support of governability and thus tries to postulate itself as a card for the next government, although due to the strong social polarization, the conciliatory tone managed to enable a greater space for Kast’s discourse, a fact that if not rectified in the short period at electoral level, the more concrete possibility of the far-right government will be present.
Defeating the far-right with left-wing and anti-capitalist organization
It is evident that a first task is to defeat the far-right Kast, who far from closing the cycle and opening the way to a “social right-wing” as the possibilists propose, is part of the social symptom we are going through, that is why contrary to the strategy of the Frente Amplio of expanding its electoral offer to the tune of Kast’s guidelines and offering to regulate migration, more carabineros and confront drug trafficking to go after the “center” vote, it is fundamental to activate an offensive policy of the anti-capitalist left, social movements and combative unionism in a united way, organizing concrete actions at street level and encouraging dialogues to set up the political reference that is needed as a reserve of the experience of the rebellion, without half measures and with a consistent program to confront the economic crisis that the future government will try to unload more deeply on the backs of the working class, nature, youth, women and dissidents. That is why it is necessary to call quickly for a meeting of all the forces and constitute a broad and permanent coordination to stop Kast. We know what the far-right candidate is pushing and shouting: against women’s lives, the rights of sexual dissidents, the protection of nature and against the majorities who live from our work. Just as the feminist movement and the forces that fight for the rights of dissent and respect for the commons have stood up to Bolsonaro, just as Black Live Matters ignited against Trump and, in general, as rebellions arise against all far-right governments, we maintain that in our country it must be a matter of the right of the majority of people who live from our work, we maintain that in our country it must be the force of the feminist wave and the anti-capitalist left that comes to the forefront and floods the streets against the attack that Kast’s proto-fascist discourse means for us and set up a left, feminist, classist and anti-fascist way out. That is our first task.
As Movimiento Anticapitalista we are ready for these tasks and we will do our best to stop the far-right, voting for the candidate of Apruebo Dignidad, although we do not trust him because of the negative role he plays to stop the necessary changes and for his constant consequence of promoting the Peace Accord and consequently, helping the emergence of the candidate of rejection, that is why we know that it is a critical and deeply anti-Kast vote, the fundamental thing will be the active role of the transforming forces that in a united way we activate in building an alternative from and for the 99%. The first demonstration will be the march against macho violence on November 25, a central moment to demonstrate that feminist and left forces continue to promote the struggle against all nostalgic variants of Pinochettism and conservatives, let’s make the mobilization strong.
With these perspectives we invite you to organize: the proto-fascists can be fought with anti-capitalism, revolutionary feminism, ecosocialism and internationalism. That is our roadmap as an organization. Join and join the Anticapitalist Movement, let’s not give space to the pinochetists or to those who make deals with them.
[i] Chile Has Awakened (December 2019), Permanent Revolution #2: https://lis-isl.org/en/2019/12/01/chile-desperto/
[ii] Concertación: political coalition of the Socialsit Party, Social Christian Party, Radical Party and others, that governed 20 years after the return of democracy. It was later renamed New Majority with Bachelet’s second government and included the Communist Party.
[iii] Es posible liquidar el régimen de los “30 años” (May 2021): http://anticapitalistas.cl/2021/05/19/es-posible-liquidar-el-regimen-de-los-30-anos/
[iv] Crisis de la Lista del Pueblo. Nuestra mirada a los debates y desafíos (August 2021): http://anticapitalistas.cl/2021/08/18/crisis-de-la-lista-del-pueblo-nuestra-mirada-a-los-debates-y-desafios/