Chile: between a rock and a hard place
Mauricio Rojas has a resume full of adventures and experiences: he became a MIR leftist in his youth, then left the country, became a classical liberal, emigrated to Sweden where he became a Congressman, came back, was appointed minister of Piñera’s government and many other things, among which the most important for me is that we became friends. He is a voice to be heard concerning the future of Chile, and he is concerned no matter what happens this week with the plebiscite on the new Constitution.
The future is dark if the draft is approved, something that does not seem to happen, and Mauricio believes the rejection vote will win. But even in this case he sees a difficult future ahead, particularly because those groups who worked harder for this draft, like the Communist Party, may go back to instate insurrectional uprisings along the lines of those of 2019, which eventually led to this very same constitutional process. The violence of leftist activists in the streets would be joined with the violence of mapuche groups in the south, creating what could be an explosive cocktail, threatening the present sobriety of Chilean politics.
Chile is the country with the best institutional quality in Latin America and this is, probably, its major test in more than 40 years. Will their institutions stand in the way to a Venezuelan Chile? Mauricio is concerned, and he believes president Boric should break out with the violent leftists and work to build a new social-democratic coalition.
I have some doubts about this. Wasn’t the Concertación precisely such a coalition? And it looks left leaning Chileans wanted something harder and many of them may be willing to commit institutional suicide.
Anyway, Mauricio’s views are very much worth reading: https://ellibero.cl/actualidad/mauricio-rojas-el-presidente-tendria-que-romper-con-el-partido-comunista-para-que-pueda-encabezar-la-reconciliacion-post-plebiscito/